Ripples
by Kiana Caelum
Summary: Trapped in an arranged marriage, Delphine Thetis was desperate to escape, desperate enough to do anything. As she sought to free herself, she began to find her life had been built on lies and that she would have to sacrifice everything.
1. Chapter One

New story, new characters, and all thoughts & criticism are very much welcome! Lyrics from Joan Jones's _Wide Eyed Devil._

**Ripples Part One**

_And I will sing you a song while you fetch me my last meal  
If I want to._

That night, Zeke went from the grave to the lake as he always did, and watched her. He watched her with his lips parted, and his eyes huge and wondering in the darkness.

She never knew he was there; of course she didn't. Hidden in the shadows spreading like moth's wings, he sat awed and silent to watch the trails left by the soft slide of her body. How beautiful she was - how utterly exquisite, moving smooth as warm oil on skin.

His hands were pressed flat on the ground, his spine curved as a longbow as he leant to listen to her voice echoing out across the night.

She was a siren, a mermaid, a goddess, anything he wanted her to be. Her music throbbed through his veins like the promise of a heartbeat next to his, a promise as yet unmade and unknown. He ached with every sound, each note plucking on the parts of his memory he had thought lost.

God, but she was beautiful.

And dangerous.

He couldn't help himself - every night, he swore he would not let his feet draw him down this path. Every night, he crouched by the waters, and threw back his head in a silent, unending scream at the agony and the brilliance of her song.

An atheist seeing God, he could not help himself.

In those stealthy nights, she was everything he had ever dreamed about - his impossible fantasy, his daydream creature, saying words he knew he would never hear. He had never seen her face, or even all of her silhouette. Only her voice, haunting him in the long and lonely nights.

So long. So lonely.

Maybe he had passed her in the streets a thousand times. Maybe he had spoken to her, or argued with her, or lent her a textbook in his classes. Zeke didn't know.

He didn't want to know.

He couldn't bear for the dream to be shattered.

It was becoming harder and harder not to call out to her. Harder to leave when he heard her swim towards the shores so he would not see her as she was, but as he imagined her. Harder not to step into the light and declare himself.

But Zeke knew - he had learned it the hardest way of all - that nothing would ever match his dreams.

No, he couldn't bear to know.

It never occurred to him that he might not have any say in the matter.

X - X - X - X - X

In the empty throne room, the boy's too bold and bright for her pallid world. He stands there like he belongs - his shoulders back and his head high, and his eyes meeting hers fearlessly - even though nothing but her hollow heart belongs in this prison, this tomb.

She likes that in him.

His audacity amuses her, a breeze blowing over the ashes of her life to rouse a glow. And he's familiar - so achingly familiar. The tangled gold of his hair reminds her too much of old loves: often she wonders if he'd let her touch it, run her curled and cramped fingers through it. Probably he would, she thinks, if he thought it would win him favour or power.

Power; it's always what they want from her, the few who are clever enough and brave enough to find her. They want her secret; her deathless existence. Some flinch back from her, eyes wide, frightened by her appearance.

She hasn't seen herself in many years, but knows herself to be a monstrosity. Her hair is fraying, remaining only in clumps. It clings to the folds of her skin, though even that has begun to slough off and putrefy. Sores run along her forearms, screaming red mixing with sickly grey-green.

_So you're back again_, she says, her mental voice as strong and musical as it was in her prime. She no longer speaks aloud, her voice withered as her body. _My beautiful one._ _No tribute this time, I see._

His eyes flash, a startling lagoon blue. Untouched by time, she could plunge into his stare, drown herself in his youth and his vivacity. She chooses not to; she is not sure he would survive the experience.

"You see me. Isn't that tribute?" he answers with that charming arrogance. And with more perception than she thought he had. Yes, she likes beautiful things. But she does not like his lack of respect.

_ Your presence? _He winces, her voice sawing into his thoughts. Pain is a good teacher, she knows that well. _You are a beggar at my door, nothing more. _

A lie, but a calculated one.

In the graveyard silence, his voice is irreverently loud, anger barely held back. Silk on her ears, wrapping her in his youth, his lavish indifference of how good it is to be young, strong, beautiful. "And if I'm such a nuisance, why invite me in? Or is this just a stupid game, a way for an ugly old crone to pass the time?"

The words are like broken glass, embedding themselves into her skin. Stupid that they should hurt her so, but they do.

_Take care not to confuse bravery with arrogance. The first will keep you alive. The second will get you killed._

A quick lash of her power, and his back arches, his mouth streches wide so she can see the line of his teeth - his knees give and he is on the ground, his heavy breathing muffled by the stones.

His face is sullen, but he holds back his anger. "I'm still alive, aren't I?" he says in the gentlest voice, control making his eyes a lagoon frozen, cooled - and she is impressed.

_You will be more than that soon_, she murmurs.

A flashing smile - oh, an echo of another's, and for a moment she too is young and beautiful, waiting for the music to begin so she can dance and dance and see that smile endlessly-

But it vanishes, another illusion shattered by the starkness of reality. His face becomes shuttered by that minute, near-perfect control.

"Thank you." So polite. So careful. Yes, he will do.

She beckons him close, and he obeys, lying to himself that it is necessity rather than obedience that weighs his steps. His pride may undo him, as it undid her long ago; in him, she sees uncanny flickers of herself, in that lazy walk, that casual smile - even kneeling, his head remains unbowed, staring up at her.

_You know,_ she murmurs softly, reaching out a hand to caress his hair idly. Yes, it's as soft as she thought, bristling just a little under her cramped fingertips. _The times are changing, boy._

"The times always change." She half-smiles at the coolness in his voice, his surety in himself.

Wrong, she wants to say. Time loops in on itself over and over, we repeat the days of our life in spirals and circles, curling around our old mistakes, wrapping them in new errors, new slips - we climb the same slope only to slide down it again on different pebbles.

Something of her thoughts must have shimmered in her face; his eyes flare, fierce and almost fiery if not for the pure aquamarine flecks that mark him as water's child, always water. "If nothing changes, why am I here? Why are you helping me if you think nothing will change?"

She thinks of all the others who came to her. So many over the long scrape of the years, children and men and women. Part of her heart says nothing can change, nothing dead can change, but the other part...

_Hope is a dreadful thing_, she answers finally.

He doesn't understand her; too young to envision loss and suffering as she has known them.

No more, she vows to herself. I will wind back the years, and this time, I will make no mistakes.

X - X - X - X - X

Morning burst onto Ryars Valley like an aspiring starlet, in a blast of gold and glitter. Light snagged on the lake to fling away the stifling dark and replace it with flurries of shadows and shimmering heat.

It woke Delphine Thetis from a nightmare, and strangled the scream in her throat.

Her mind mulled it over sleepily, recalling the last fragments of the nightmare before it faded into insipidity. But too much of it was gone already; only flashes remained like burnished bones.

A bloody cross.

The roar of fire, the smothering smoke.

And eyes - striking, unswerving eyes, that caught with a copper and inhuman sheen. Metal flat, yet more expressive than anything she had ever seen. His eyes...

Yes - him. That much she knew.

A polite rap on the door and her father ambled in, knocking away the last scraps of her dream. His glasses sat askew on his nose as they invariably did, and a cup of tea steamed in his hands.

"Coming to the evening swim tonight, idleness?" he teased. "Your mother says Don Ivan will be there, and she adds he's quite the catch, eh?" He waggled his eyebrows at the pun.

The horrifying thought of Poseidon Ivan dashed the dream from her. Not another night spent trying to remove his wandering hands. Phi cursed her mother's single-minded conviction that Poseidon Ivan was perfect for her. He might be one of the most powerful dolphin shapeshifters, and he might even be handsome as they came, but she had seen a side of him far, far different from his public persona.

And he frightened her.

But she couldn't tell her parents that; she had tried once, and they hadn't believed her. Abandoned to her fear, she had done all she could to avoid Don Ivan and his friends. So she plastered on a fake smile and said only,"Dad, I'm not interested in Don. He thinks he's the biggest fish in the sea."

"Teenage ego, love. Your mother's determined to match you up with some lad. We're only a small pod, and she wants you to snaffle some eligible bachelor." He winked. "Just like she did."

"Not Don." Phi wrenched open her curtains. "Not ever. And if she doesn't like it, she can go fish."

"Good one," her father said, nodding solemnly. Bad jokes were a Thetis trademark, though some of the other merpeople seemed to find it vulgar. "But Don's not as bad as you think - he's a good lad, with a kind heart. You might even find you change your mind about him in time. Now come on, love, you'll be late for school, and I know you don't want that! You've got that maths test this afternoon, haven't you?"

She pulled a face. "Thanks for reminding me. Last day of school and I have an exam. Now I really want to get up."

"Will crumpets tempt you?" he asked hopefully, with the little winsome smile that nearly stripped the years from him, if not for his silver hair. "I even bought some raspberry jam."

Phi brightened.

"We can go through differential equations while you eat," he added, and rushed out of the room before she had a chance to hurl anything after him.

Another day. Another day of trying to survive pod politics and other people's expectations. Trying to forget Don Ivan, though he stalked her dreams most nights until she woke clammy and cold, cradling her arm.

When I'm old enough to leave the pod, she thought, it will all be over.

But until then, she was trapped.

She looked at the sun streaming like honey through her window, and heard the fluting trills of the house martens that nested outside her window. Far off, she heard the distant hum of Mr Wallis down the road, mowing his lawn like he did every Monday, still drunk from the night before, and inhaled the fragrant scent of cut grass.

Even the damned can enjoy summer, Phi thought, and smiled.

X - X - X - X - X

"God, he's such a babe." The wistful sigh was Celia Slone, who was plaiting her dark hair again, fingers moving deftly. "Look at that body - just look. How am I going to survive a whole summer without it?"

Phi ignored her, too absorbed in trying to find something she could eat without feeling like the entire percussion section of the London Symphony Orchestra had organised a rehearsal in her stomach.

"You'll cope," she said absently, wriggling her shoulders in the tickling summer heat. "Did anyone tell them lettuce isn't a vital ingredient of curry?"

"Curry!" The Asian girl flung her hands in the air. "Our beautiful, hot, charming gym teacher is standing over there, and you're worrying about curry?"

Phi lifted her eyes from the highly dubious contents of her plate to see the amused grins of her friends. "Cee, he's twenty three. He's engaged. And he gets furry."

Her friend countered almost instantly, the hawkish eyes dancing. "He's experienced, he understands commitment, and...and..."

"Go on," prompted the lanky, grinning boy half-asleep on Phi. He lifted his head off her legs briefly to widen the mocking dark blue eyes. "Tell us how dating a guy who eats intestines can be good."

"He eats lots of protein," finished Celia triumphantly. "Hah, see, perfect in every way. Please, Finn, tell me you don't want to just cover him in ice- cream and lick it off."

"I don't, actually," Finley Farrier said dryly, rolling onto his back so he was looking up at Phi. "Mr Jubatus and ice-cream...uh, no thanks."

"I'm more a fudge sauce man, myself," put in Riose Orage from his unabashed sun-bathing..

Finn only shook his head briefly, and carried on. "But if we're talking about my darling Delphine here, now..." He reached up to give her a smacking kiss on the lips. "Ice-cream or no ice-cream, she's the most tempting thing in my eye-line."

Considering the other things filling his view were the sky, Riose and an overflowing garbage can, Phi didn't attribute too much to that.

"Unhand me, you ruffian," she declared, wriggling out of his grasp with just the faintest grin threatening her pokerfaced expression.

"Or what?" he flung back, sitting up to snag her wrist in his hands. His playful, wide smile was as outlandish as his flaming red hair.

"Or I'll set Kirsty on you," she deadpanned.

He let go. "Dear god, please don't. She only has to look at me and I'm a puddle of terror on the floor." One hand placed over his heart, Finn was back into theatrical mode and gazing at her with soulful eyes. "I fear, my lady fair, even you could not bring me back from that. Though...a kiss from your divine lips might."

"A kiss where, exactly?" she enquired, and could only grin in delight as a faint flush spread up his pale skin.

It was an archetypal summer day; the air simmering, thrashing the earth into a forge. Everyone was enjoying the heatwave.

Celia Slone had her ultra-healthy lunch of chocolate cake and crisps spread around her like a sacrifice, sighing with bliss at every spoonful of the mousse that was the coffee-cream of her skin. Just as heavenly was the sculpted face of Riose, his strange slanting eyes half-closed.

Phi had long ago had her hopeless crush on Riose, and just as quickly gotten over it. However, she couldn't help but admire the elegant carriage as he sat, back perfectly straight, hands on his knees, soaking in the heat. His mouth was set into the faintest of smiles against his golden skin. Vampire - and proud of it - Riose never even pretended to humanity.

"Stop teasing him," the vampire advised now, without opening his eyes. "And Finn - just screw her and get it over with."

"Well!" she gasped.

"Oh, come on..." Riose did open one eye, the ocean colour startlingly bright against the wavy dark hair. "We can all feel the chemistry. Entertaining though this constant will-they-won't-they game is, and it always gives us something to gossip about behind your backs, it gets tiring. And besides, I've got twenty bucks on you two making it before next Thursday, so hurry up, already."

"Last of the great romantics." The new voice had a husky purr to it, and Phi looked up to see the slinky figure of Joana Katter bend down, one hand on her hip and the other stroking Riose's jaw. "What do you say to your potential dates? Come on, baby, I've got a bet riding on me riding you?"

"Jeez, Jo," muttered Celia through a mouthful of crisps. "You're getting as bad as him."

The girl laughed, and crumpled down onto the grass. "Nah, I'm the one he's got the bet with and I could use some easy money. And Cee - quit ogling Jepar, okay? He may be your hot gym teacher, but I have to hunt with him."

"Tell her about the intestines," begged Finn. "Please, please, make her shut up about him."

Jo slanted him a wicked look from those lime-green eyes, the neurotic citrus colour that screamed her wild nature out to the world. "I haven't seen his intestines, darling."

"You know that wasn't what I meant."

She only chuckled. "Sorry Cee, but it's hard to want a guy when you seen him gulping down raw liver."

Phi couldn't stop the grimace - vegetarian by choice, if not by nature, the thought of her Nightworld friends hunting made her stomach churn. It had been that way ever since she had been taken for a meeting with the local Pack as a child; aged eight, and too trusting, she had never forgotten it.

After all, it haunted her dreams every night.

"Now, now," Riose chided, but gently. "Don't pull that face, Delphine. Different strokes for different folks."

"I find that it's pretty much universal below waist level," chipped in Jo, with a curling smile of her icy-pink mouth. "And don't you go starting anything, Riose. You know how Phi feels about us carnivores - and we respect that."

"You always assume I'm going to start trouble," grumbled the lamia. "I'd just like to point out that every single piece of trouble I have been in has been down to Finn."

The redhead gawped. "Moi? I'm innocent as the night is long!"

"Sweetie, it's summer," murmured Phi, ruffling his hair. It was soft to her touch, falling naturally into tiny spikes. Just like petting a cat, she thought, and decided to keep it to herself. "And you did suggest dyeing Don Ivan's clothes while he was showering."

They all grinned at the memory.

"Helping him come out of the closet. I swear, I thought pink was his colour," protested Finn. He batted his eyelashes. "Turned out angry puce was though. I've never seen so many veins ready to pop in my life."

"You've never met Ross then," Riose said softly. Phi knew he had had a less than conventional childhood as the brother of Therese Orage. Part of that had included some time spent with the notorious assassin Ross, apparently.

"Happily not." The witch was silent, but only briefly. Finn was never quiet long. His tone was light, airy almost. "So, Phi, when's the wedding?"

"Soon as Brad Pitt's divorced," she said flippantly. "What are you on about, Finn?"

"Don Ivan? You and him on a bicycle made for two?"

Baffled, she looked around at her friends. All of them were watching her; Jo's lime-sharp eyes were intent, and Celia had stopped eating her junk food. This was serious.

"Do you all know something I don't?"

"We all know your parents and his have been having lots of long, intimate meetings," admitted Finn finally. He wouldn't meet her eyes anymore, the fiery head ducked. He plucked at the glass blades nervously. Not a good sign.

"So?" she said. "They always have meetings. Pod business. Dad doesn't do it all on his own, you know, and even though he and Mr Ivan don't get on, they still have to look atfer the pod."

"Don's been strutting around." That was Jo, her voice mint-cool, a little ring of disapproval on it. "Saying that he's going to be the next pod leader. Wants your dad's job, darling. And my guess is he thinks your dad's daughter is the best way to get it."

Riose cleared his throat. "Phi - he's been saying things about you. Personal things."

The little... "Like what?" she snapped, her smile fixed and so tight it hurt.

The lamia bit his lip, some of his languid poise melting away. The ocean eyes were incredibly gentle, as only Riose could be. "Like...you have a thing about men in black T-shirts. And you have a scar on the back of your knee. And...um..."

He stuttered into silence. Cool, possessed Riose silenced?

"Phi," murmured Celia, raising one finger warningly, "stop looking at Riose like you're thinking seriously about giving him a knuckle sandwich. He's just telling you how it is."

She tried to tone it down. Unfortunately, the twisting viper of rage inside her was drooling venom. "Do carry on," she said flatly.

"Don says..." Very carefully, Riose moved his knees up to shield his chest and other more vulnerable areas. "You're a good lay."

Bastard. Treacherous, lying bastard.

"Of course I am," she said through gritted teeth, "but I can assure you that Don Ivan doesn't know that."

"I'd like to second that statement," Finn put in quirkily. "But I can't, because my lovely Delphine won't let me touch her sacred person. Phi, Phi, all this trouble could have been avoided if you'd just let me hopelessly slaver and worship you."

"Is now really the time for levity?" Celia rapped Finn's knee with a bar of chocolate, her hawkish eyes serious.

He shrugged. "Just trying to lighten the atmosphere."

"I like it dark," growled Phi. "It'll hide the horrible way I'm going to mutilate Don when I next see him.I'm going to make him into mincemeat, and then I'm going to mix him up with garlic and tomatoes and make bolognese sauce from him."

All four of her friends looked at her, human and witch and vampire and shapeshifter, people she'd known since her childhood snorted with laughter, and that set the lot of them off. She remained pokerfaced, while they sat there chortling.

"I'll provide the spaghetti," volunteered Celia between sniggers.

"I'm not laughing," she announced ominously.

Celia composed herself first, even if her lips still quirked at the corners. "Oh Phi, we didn't believe the rumours, and no one else will. You're overreacting."

"I'm not," she snapped. "I'm not Don's and I won't ever be!"

"You're wrong there, I'm afraid," said a butter-smooth voice behind her, and Phi froze.

Oh no. Just what she needed to complete the day. Poseidon Ivan himself.

That certainly stopped her friends' laughter, she noted grimly, as she turned to face him. She swallowed back her fear, as she always did, hiding it under brashness and sharp words.

He was stood right in front of the noonday sun, so it blasted out around him like a cloak of fire. It turned his pale hair to a rich, melting gold that clung to his heart-shaped face, and bordered the lagoon-blue eyes with careful art.

He had the soft bronze skin of a Mediterranean, turning to a dark gold where his nose and cheekbones had been grazed by sunlight. And he was tall; Phi knew from weary experience that he had to bend down to kiss her, just as she had to reach up to give him a hefty smack on the jaw. Only his hands gave an indication of what he was; there was frail webbing a little too high on his fingers, and he walked like someone used to shifting ground.

Don smiled almost gently at her. "It's all been agreed, Phi. The contracts are signed, and the whole pod knows. We will be married."

"Over my dead body!"

He tapped his thigh thoughtfully. "Hopefully not. Why are you so against this, Phi? I'll be good to you, you know. I have been good to you."

He spoke like he believed it, as if the incident in their childhood had never happened. She knew better than to mention it; she had paid for it last time.

"Because you're arrogant, and annoying, and I don't love you?" she suggested shortly.

He shrugged. His voice was warm as steam rising. "You'll learn to, Phi."

Her friends, she noticed, were pretending they couldn't hear any of this. "No, I won't, Don. I'm not keeping a contract I wasn't consulted about."

His smile flashed like a flying fish breaking the surface. "It wasn't just a contract, Phi. You won't be breaking this one - and I won't be breaking it either."

"I will," she threw back, her fists clenched and tight on the ground. "It's been done before - my mother broke contract with your father."

"Ah, yes. So she did." He gazed up at the sky, and she thought maybe a frown grazed his features. "That did occur to our parents, you know. Rebellion is a bit of a trait in your mother's line and well...neither of us are quite the saintly paragons they were hoping for. No one wanted another farce. So..."

His head lowered in one graceful roll, and his face was blank as an eggshell. Beautiful; oh yes, but smooth and almost discordant.

"They swore in blood, Phi," he told her, not a flicker betraying what he thought. "So you see, if you break this oath, your parents and my parents die."

No...

"It's true," he said, and shrugged, a little wry smile tipping up his mouth. "One way or another, we will be married. Get used to it."

They couldn't have, her mind chattered. They wouldn't have been so stupid. Dad knows I don't like him.

But he wants what's best for the pod. And Mom...Mom's always wanted me to marry Don. They probably told themselves they were doing me a favour really. I'm sure they made some pointless justification before they took my life away from me.

They took away my life.

She never even noticed Don was gone. She didn't notice anything, except that she was getting up and people's voices were clanging in her head like plates smashing. Brushing past the hands that reached for her with comfort, blind to everything except this horrible truth, she ran away.

She ran away, not caring where she went.

Unaware that might matter more.

_And I'd sell my soul to any wide-eyed devil._

X - X - X - X - X

Thanks for reading! I'd love, love, love to hear what you think!


	2. Chapter Two

Huge thanks to the angels who reviewed the last part: **Queen Kat, Shards-of-Ice, Daugain, Silvia, Quiet Liban, Shelli, Whitesiren, Nefertity, Dianna, Debbi, Death's Counterfeit, K'Ranna, Shiegra, LifeSucksWithoutRealVamps, sumeera, Rose** and last but by no means least, **thee-darkenchantress. **Thanks so much!

Lyrics: Paula Cole's heavenly 'Mississippi'.

Feedback is loved, criticism is welcomed with open arms, and whether you review or not, more parts will be arriving. I hope you enjoy :)

**Ripples Part Two**

_Spit me out into the Mississippi  
Who can love my many selves;  
The wife, the bitch, the Rapunzel  
The one who cries, and calls for you  
The one who is always alone. _

Phi ran blindly, veering around people and objects. She ignored the sick feeling curdling in her stomach. In her wake came the fraying edge of nervous laughter along with the odd call from worried classmates.

Locked in a life she didn't want with Don forever.

Phi only knew she wanted – no, she needed – to get away. Not the lake. Some of the pod might be up there, and they would be sure to tell her parents their daughter was acting crazily.

Not the Chill. It was Friday, and that meant Cougar Redfern, ultra-cool owner of the cafe by day and nightclub by dark, would be in. He wouldn't tell her parents, but he might tell too many other people.

Instead, she ran into the school building, through the wide low corridors, past clusters of people who cared nothing that her life was splintering about her.

She heard footsteps behind her, heard people shouting Don's name with a mixture of amusement and encouragement, and knew he was following her. Of course – he didn't want his perfect election gimmick doing his campaign any damage.

In the frightened, animal core of her heart, she knew her bolthole. Into the east branch, and past the hall where the choir were rehearsing.

His footsteps seemed further behind her. Maybe he had given up.

And then she came to the narrow corridor, smelling of wood polish and resin, cosily lined with wooden doors. She dashed into the nearest, slamming the door and leaning back against it. The music rooms were small, intimate places where private lessons took place and Phi had spent days here, coaxing songs from the mellow old pianos. Running through scales again and again, learning to project her voice and to breathe properly.

Phi didn't care if Don was following her. She only knew if he came in here, into her shelter, she would fly at him, hit at him. Anger was white-hot, side by side with the nauseous fear.

She knelt down and laid her arms on the piano stool, not letting the tears flow. No, she wouldn't cry. This wasn't going to happen, she wouldn't marry him, so she wouldn't waste her grief. And she laid her head on her arms, and closed her eyes, trying to wish it all away.

So many happy times spent here.

And this single, terribly painful one, obliterating them all.

X - X - X - X - X

He'd seen too much.

The world that had once been all flares and fireworks, dazzling and blinding him to all else, had become mere ashes. No longer beguiled by the power of it all, he saw now the cage surrounding him.

Once, he had tasted escape like the first drop of a fine wine, but it had turned to poison on his lips, turned to the bitterness of betrayal. And so he remained her possession.

_So angry_, she said icily. He didn't need to look up from where he knelt to know her eyes would not be focused on him. She saw in other ways, stripping away the layers of flesh around him until only his soul stood before her, naked, shuddering and frail. _Even after all this time? Why do you chafe against your duty?_

Because I never thought this would be my fate, he wanted to spit back. The flames raged in his heart, licking out along his blood and if he'd been able, Zeke would have let them race through his body, consuming every inch of him until he only burned, until he was only heat and the harsh beauty of fire.

I thought there was more than this.

But all he said was, "I don't know."

So throaty, her laugh - a young woman's laugh, shaking an old woman's body. _Fight it if you will. It changes nothing; kick and scream and sulk, but you are mine, and you will be mine until these days are just a whisper in the wind, and these people chewed into dust._

The thought was terrible.

_Am I so cruel?_ she said sharply, rising from her throne to lay one crooked and withering hand on his forehead. Her back was hunched now, though he remembered too easily the days when he had been the beautiful toy of a beautiful mistress, when she had vowed he should be her companion and not her slave; when freedom had been a sweet expectation, not a distant, dying hope.

But then the Burning Times had come.

_Have I ever hurt you?_ she demanded, moving to grip his chin.

Her fingers were weak, but her magic put false strength into them until he could not look away, and he feared the truth battered against his gaze for her to see. His hopes shredded to smoky tatters; their past stood between them like a sharpened blade.

"Yes," he answered squarely. "You promised me freedom. You gave me this."

Her fungus-soft, rotting lips curled into a cold smile. _I will not argue this again. Promises soaked in wine are rarely kept, and never meant. You are too dangerous to let go. This world is not meant for creatures like you. You proved that with your little - slip._

"One mistake," he breathed, the grief only fanning his anger and injustice. "You know why I did it, you know! I only wanted-"

_I know what you wanted._ There was something close to sympathy in her voice. _I wished for the same, once. But time has taught me otherwise. The world is too weak for us; we were born in times of fire, and we cannot live in dust. When the world burns again - yes, then I will set you free._

"And when will that be?" he shouted, his voice cracking like a whip in the empty cavern. "The dragons are asleep, the Drax are destroyed, the witches are nothing but a shadow of what they were. Even the Furies are children playing with sharp toys!"

Her fingers stroked through his hair, strangely soothing. _Soon, child. Sooner than anyone knows._

"Soon," he echoed dully. Soon. Empty words, promises of tomorrows that would never be.

Soon was all he had left.

X - X - X - X - X

"I don't believe it." Finley Farrier thumped his fist on the ground. It didn't help; all he got for his troubles was aching knuckles and a small dent in the grass. "I thought it was just rumour. Just bloody rumour."

He'd only brought it up so Phi could laugh it off, thinking it nothing more than flotsam Don Ivan was spreading to boost his already stratospheric reputation. And instead...instead, it was true, and Phi was shackled to that ego on legs.

Finn didn't like Don Ivan much.

"An arranged marriage?" he said scornfully, desperately, filling the awkward silence because no one else would. "C'mon, we're in the twenty-first century, not the eighteenth. Phi's sixteen. She's way too young to be getting hitched..." But he knew it was wishful thinking; he'd been brought up in the ways of the Nightworld and understood their struggle to survive and their ambition, rooted in strict tradition.

"Not in the pod." Riose's face was drawn. "They're still singing the same songs they sang when Ryar ap Sangager made them; they're still keeping all their old customs. They're about the only people who do now."

"They can't hold her to it," said Celia, furious. She was tearing at a crisp packet, shredding the foil over and over until Riose reached out and gently stopped her. "That's – that's barbaric! No one can make her do anything she doesn't want to – it's illegal."

Finn and Riose exchanged glances. Both of them came from old Nightworld families, from the enclaves that were locked away from the world.

"Human law doesn't apply here," Finn explained quietly, a knot of anger balling in his stomach. "When it comes to marriages, the Nightworld is...strict, Cee. We're a dying breed now, and the old families are doing everything they can to survive."

"But – she can go to the police," protested Celia. Her brown eyes darted from one of them to the other, anxious. "Or the Elders. Aspen said the Elders care a lot more now than they did when he was in school..."

Jo laughed sourly, the sound wrenching the air. "The police? Cee, you know human laws don't mean anything here. And the Elders…they don't care. They care about Aspen and his friends, because they're powerful and they're dangerous. But us? All they want is for us to act like good little children – do you think they care who Phi marries? Who else is left? No one who gives a damn."

"That…may not be true," said Riose slowly. There was a look on his face Finn had never seen before – and with a shock, he placed it. Fear. "There is someone."

"Yeah?" Jo raised one eyebrow. "Who, genius?"

Riose said it so quietly, Finn almost didn't hear. "The Furies."

All of them shut up, and Finn felt his skin go cold. Despite the heat of the day, goosebumps rippled up his arms.

Jo flinched back from him, pale. "Don't say that word here!" she hissed. "You bloody imbecile, what if someone hears?"

Goddess bright, the Furies.

Celia looked from one face to the other, her lips tight. "What do those monsters have to do with anything?"

Like all of them, she had heard the whispers that rattled around from time to time; the Demon Fury had been seen on the mountains, climbing, climbing, climbing. No one knew why, but there were murmurs of strange rituals, of the Pack wailing of loss and horror in the empty night. People said someone from Pursang lived here; that K'Shaia had bribed the Elders to let them bury their dead and theirs secrets; and maybe it could have been dismissed as the trivia and tripe of a small town, if not for the persistence of the rumours.

"Nothing," Finn said, his eyes on Riose. "I seriously hope."

"Something," the lamia answered. He drew his knees up to his chest, arms secure around them as though it were a chilly day. "This isn't something Phi can get out of, guys. Blood-oath…god, I though that had died out. Someone wants this marriage badly."

"Several someones," Finn snapped, the thoughts turning in his head like kaleidoscope patterns. Shifting, sorting – clearing. "Phi's parents for one."

"No…" Celia began, but her voice faded. Human though she was, she'd seen too much of the Nightworld through her sister's fiancé, the one-time assassin, now doting parent and local mechanic, Aspen Martin.

"You think anyone could make Phi's dad do anything he didn't want?" he demanded. "You were there when those Pack idiots thought they'd slash his tyres. He took on three of them, and they were armed."

"Yeah," the human girl said softly. "And her mum – well, you know."

There was a brief, respectful silence. Phi's mother was the last of a dying breed: a prophetess, who had helped all of them over the years. A dying breed – because prophecy was a poisonous gift, taking life in exchange for clarity, and Phi's mother was slowly wasting away.

"She's always wanted Phi to marry a nice Nightworld boy," Jo said, a bitter twist to her mouth. "And her dad wants to leave the pod in good hands. I think...when Phi's mum...when she dies, her dad won't want to stay around. That's what I heard some of the pod saying."

"If he thinks Don Ivan counts as good hands, he's blind," Finn muttered. There was a mutual, agreeable silence.

"I'm going after Phi," Riose said quietly, getting to his feet in an unusually awkward motion. There was a tension to his back and shoulders Finn hadn't seen since they'd gotten into that fight with the Pack boys.

"Fine," Jo said. "But leave the damn Furies out of it. She doesn't need scaring to death."

Those turquoise eyes were icier than they had been in a long time. "Don't tell me what to do. I know more about the Furies than any of you."

"And how is that?" The shapeshifter was pushing Riose; always dangerous.

Finn and Celia exchanged one glance of perfect understanding. "Drop it," she said sharply. "Jo, Riose, you aren't helping. Phi first, petty arguments later."

"Who says it's petty?" demanded Jo, her face taut with the beginnings of primal, animal anger.

Good idea, Finn thought, gesturing Riose away with a flick of his fingers. Get her attention onto us. We don't set her off the way Ri does. They're both just too damn wrapped up in their secrets.

"Me," he jumped in, and leaned forward to give her a smacking, circus kiss on the mouth. "But I like you that way."

"Stop that." But something eased in her eyes, softening into chartreuse green. "You can't just keep kissing people to solve all your problems."

"It works, though," he countered, and gave her a wink. "Go on, be mad at me now."

She snarled, but there was no real force behind it. "You!"

Celia offered her chocolate solemnly. "Calming you down isn't quite as fun as baiting Riose, but it's less likely to get us all killed."

He nodded. "You two really do rub each other the wrong way." Understatement. Riose and Jo were almost always arguing, when they weren't making ludicrous bets and dares against each other. Sometimes Finn thought they were just too, too alike; other times he was cowering under the nearest shelter as they fought out their differences.

"He's so..." The wildcat waved her hands as if trying to explain the sheer baffling complexity of Riose, and settled for making a throttling motion with her hands.

"We know," chorused the witch and the human, and with a dexterity that came from defusing too many of these situations, Celia said, "But he's nowhere near as annoying as Michael Richardson..."

"Oh god, tell me about it!" Jo said, and the two of them were off.

Close call, Finn thought, lying back on the grass, and hoping that Riose could say something to help Phi. Just not...

He shivered, cold despite the smashing heat of the sun.

Please, just not the Furies.

X - X - X - X - X

Inside the prison of her body, she roams, restless. She lives almost entirely in her memories – there, at least, she is no crumbling crone, but a beautiful glimmering thing, a courtesan and a king's daughter. But a woman who had the misfortune to choose the wrong side in the war, and who, for her foolishness, was punished.

Once, she remembers, with a pain so familiar she barely feels it, she was Avy ap Sangager, and she was one of thirteen shimmering sirens.

In those days, the world was a place of passion and brilliance, volatile as her temper. Was she as cruel then? She can remember being powerful, and ruthless, but her weapons were her charm, her intelligence, and her sensuous, dangerous beauty.

The beauty is gone; her charm with it. Now she holds them only with fear, and the promise of power where once there was the promise of sex, or love if they were fool enough to believe that.

Once, she too had been lulled by that child's dream. Love. She had burned with it, been consumed with for centuries, hungering for a man who had wanted only to be the first to taste the intensity and ardour of Sangager's siren. He had taken her and used her, and cast her aside when he became bored.

And when her pleas did not draw him, and her outrageous behaviour only repelled him, and he resisted her entrapment, she gave up, and her desire shivered into shattered pieces.

He left her nothing but bitterness - and a cruel, precious gift: he gave her Zeke.

Zeke – this quiet boy of flickering violence and old, persistent yearning. He was made, not born, and so he is a rootless, drifting thing, held to the world only by her hold over him. Long ago, thinking it a surety and not naivety, she promised him freedom, in those times when she loved him.

He was safe to love then; her toy, she told the court and the world, and made no mention of his solid, warm presence in the empty nights when she ignored the fractures on her heart and tried to remember her hope and her innocence. In her way, she still loves him, but knows that there is no room for love and vengeance to exist side by side.

The years have left him untouched; his eyes are still that wonderful shade of copper, gleaming with resentment where once there was affection, his face young and fresh. Something in the way he stands reminds her of that first lover; do all the fireborn move so, striking sparks wherever they travel?

He will always be hers, but he will never again believe her. Yet her plans are real; in Poseidon Ivan, she sees the first hints of salvation, sees her own old cunning and knows he can be useful. She has what he wants – and he, little though he knows it, he has what she needs.

She will be beautiful again, and all who look upon her will love her.

And this time, there will be no mercy.

X - X - X - X - X

Phi didn't know how long she stayed in that small room, clinging to the piano stool, locking herself away. The bell for lessons droned, a lone and distant bee to her ears, and she remained, pretending she was numb with shock but knowing in truth that she was splintering like ice under the sun, sure that she would scream and shatter.

She was so immersed, wrestling with this demon polyglot of pain and fear and denial that she didn't hear the soft snick of the door.

Until Riose hunkered down in front of her, she didn't even see him.

"Phi?" he said in a gentle, too-husky voice. His elbows rested on his knees, his hands limp between his spread legs yet he didn't move an inch, as comfortable in that inelegant position as he would have been on a feather bed.

She had expected someone eventually, but had thought it would be Finn, desperately flirting and cracking jokes. Or Celia, trying to make it all okay with bluntness and chocolate. Not Riose, who avoided confrontation and all those messy, thorny emotions.

She looked right at him, wondering if her eyes showed the fissures that yawned in her mind. "Riose."

Small, skewed smile. "Figured you'd be here."

"You're the smart one."

The lamia's face was solemn now. "How bad is it?"

For a moment, Phi only stared back, not knowing how to tell him that she saw him through iron bars. The echo of her future prison, the pearly-white cage of her unwanted marriage slammed around her, constricting her throat. "Very bad."

"You really didn't know," he said, not as a question but as a simple fact. He reached over the warm plastic cushion of the stool, to pull her hair, same way he had the first day they met at kindergarten. Usually it made her smile. Now it made her throat throb painfully. "Gods."

"I can't marry him, Riose. I just can't." No matter how hard she tried to force the panic down, it rose to edge her voice. "He scares me…I don't even like him, how can they expect me to love him?"

"I don't know." He leaned forward, sliding onto his knees so they knelt opposite each other, face to face, blood to water. "He scares me too, Phi, and I don't even understand why."

She shuddered. In her dreams, Don still stood there, laughing and forcing down her head, his hand stone on the back of her neck, smell of fresh blood and old ordure all around. "I didn't think anything could frighten you."

"No?" An odd note in his voice caught her, and for the first time, Phi really focused on his face. It was impassive – it always was, Riose unfailingly won their games of group poker – except for the tightness about the corners of his mouth. "I'm a better actor than I thought, then."

"Oh?"

"Did I ever tell you about my sister?" he said quietly. His eyes met hers, flares of silky aquamarine swirling about his irises, riptides reaching out to grab her and drag her. "Therese?"

"Never." She half-smiled; it was all she could muster. "What's so terrible about her?"

He had always deftly changed the subject; after a while, they had simply stopped asking. No one liked that dangerous softness to his voice when he mentioned his family, a little serrated edge to his smile that said if the subject didn't change, his mood would, and for the worse.

There was an odd sound, a squeaky scrunching noise, then a pop. She looked down, startled – Riose's fingers had punched right through the leather of the stool, clenched tight. He gave an awkward laugh, snatching his hands back.

"She's…"

He took a deep breath, his face so open, so vulnerable that it didn't seem quite like Riose at all; it was a sting to realise how little she really knew about him.

"She runs K'Shaia."

K'Shaia? Everyone in the Night World had heard of the three deadly mercenary organisations; K'Shaia, Pursang and Nightfire. Elitist and icy, they were treacherous as winter currents, carving bloody trails into the Night World. Their brutality was legendary, their cruelty renowned, and their leaders notorious.

Most common were the tales of the Grieving Fury, popular at wakes and funerals, some sweet and subtle angel of death, who drifted through the world. She was a smoky shrouded woman of no description; nothing except huge sad eyes that would make you weep as she killed you and mourned you. Pursang's sorrowful queen, haunted and horrific.

The stories of the Demon Fury were shared around campfires, among children with a taste for gore; most evil of the three Furies, he was not so much man as monster, beautiful beyond dreams and barbaric beyond nightmares. His eyes were the blue of fire's deepest core, and he smelt of copper and ice. Nightfire was his, and he ruled it with blood and iron and fear.

But if Riose's sister ran K'Shaia…but that would make her…

"The Viper Fury," he confirmed, pain twisting his mouth at the edges, and she felt a kinship with him.

You and I, she thought, both what we ought not be.

"She isn't real," she whispered, unable to believe it; even the rough shadows of his pain could not convince her.

She remembered the pod girls telling stories of the Viper Fury, a vengeful angry siren, when summer stretched out the days into slow haze. K'Shaia loved poison best; they were subtle murderers, dabbling in politics with strangling fingers. And the Viper Fury; she was a Romany princess, haughty and temperamental. One kiss could be the silken brush of heaven, or the slick venom of death.

"Oh, she's real." Riose tipped up her face, and with that gentlest of touches, she glimpsed what he had really wanted her to see; what he had really meant to say. "They're all real, Phi. Every last one. They have names, and faces, and they really aren't that different from us."

"You…you know them." It was a fact, not a question; she felt it in his fingers trembling on her jaw. "All of them?"

"Every maniac who can swing a chainsaw." He smiled weakly. "I was...I was theirs, for a long time."

The words didn't quite make sense. "Theirs?"

"I used to recruit for Nightfire," he explained softly, turning his head away to look at the wall.

She believed him then. "Is that where you used to go in the summers?"

"Yeah." He swallowed hard, the words coming from him slowly. "Blue – the Demon Fury – took a liking to me. He and Therese were always hanging round together when they were kids. They used to live on an enclave, you see, but my mother came here when I was a baby and she took me with her. I think...I think I was very lucky that I left there."

It was bizarre hearing him refer to the Demon Fury like an old friend. Everyone knew the Demon Fury had no friends, and no compassion.

"How did they find you?" she asked, her own troubles dimming under curiosity.

"My mom. She was engaged to a boy from K'Shaia before she met my dad, and they always kept in touch. She asked him to find Therese. Well – he went one better and recruited her."

"She kept in touch?"

Riose half-smiled, at last looking at her. "You sound surprised."

"I..." The whole thing sounded preposterous. "Why would you want to? The Furies are monsters, Ri. They're campfire horror stories."

His smile quivered, died, and aghast, Phi realised what she had said. "Then I guess I must be a monster too."

"I didn't mean…"

He shrugged. "I know. There are monsters there. You can't do what they do and stay…you." Old turmoil churned in his eyes. "But...they're still just people. Therese is still my big sister, and she takes me to the cinema every now and then, y'know? She's a sucker for Disney."

Phi giggled, despite herself.

"They're very human sometimes, Phi," he said solemnly. "And – I just wanted to tell you, that if it comes to the worst, if you can't get out of this...they might help."

Her amusement vanished, replaced by chilly shock. "Why would they help me?"

"Because they know all about traps," was the startling answer.

Riose reached out and took her hand. His skin was cold, clammy, and she understood suddenly how scared he must have been that his life here would be gone.

She squeezed his fingers lightly. "Thank you, Ri."

Relief in his face, yes, it had cost him to tell her. "I thought you ought to know."

"I hope..." Just thinking about Don Ivan made her skin creep, as if it was trying to shiver itself off her body like a snakeskin. "If I talk to Mom and Dad, they'll understand." They had to. They just had to.

"Try, Phi," he advised softly. "I hope they'll listen."

And yet – something in his voice told her he didn't think they would. That surprised her; Phi was close to her parents, and unusually in the traditional world of the pod, they were modernists.

"If not though..." He leaned over and gave her a soft kiss on her forehead. "They'll ask a price, Phi, but the Furies may help."

Privately, she thought it would an icy day in hell before she went willingly to the Furies. But some of the bleak horror had gone, and she was grateful to Riose for that.

"Now come on," he said briskly, his mask firmly in place. He hauled her up, throwing a friendly arm around her waist. "It's sunny out, and Celia is going to be very upset that the one person who'll listen to her lust after Mr Jubatus isn't there."

With a groan, she let him guide her out. "It'll all end in tears."

"In a harassment order, more like," he quipped, and they made their way back out.

_I've got a piece of my heart on the sole of your shoe…  
I've got a little bit of thunder trapped inside of a cloud  
Oh, Mississippi  
Come and wash my pain away._

Thanks for reading :)


	3. Chapter Three

Another update, another day. Thanks to all you lovely, delightful people who commented on the last part: **Death's Counterfeit, Daugain, Pyrope, Silvia, Debbi, penguin, K'Ranna, Shelli, Nostawen Allesiel, Bex Drake, Shards-of-Ice, Kendal, lilmakochan, Violet Star, annemarie delacour, Shiegra** and the fabulous **untilhellfreezesover**.

Your thoughts would be adored, pored over, cheered, revered and occasionally feared. :)

Lyrics: **Steaming** by Sarah McLachlan from _Touch_

I hope you enjoy :)

**Ripples Chapter Three**

_You're always waiting on the tide  
It's time you decide.  
I walk down long roads that seem to have no end at all._

When Phi got in, the first thing she saw was her father, peeling potatoes. He was back early from work, and she knew what that meant. Her stomach filled with leaden tiredness.

He glanced round. There were lines carved on his face that hadn't been there five years ago, but the illness hadn't been so bad then.

"Hello love," he said, and raised a smile. "Your mother's overdone it again."

Phi growled. "Why won't she learn? Can't you make her stop?"

Scrape, scrape of potato skins coiling into the sink. "Don't you think I'd stop her if I could? But it's her gift and she chooses when to use it. Whether I like it or not. Go and say hello, she needs to ask you something."

And whatever it was, Phi knew when she saw her mother, a translucent ghost among the flowery sheets, she wouldn't be able to refuse. She never could. Sometimes she wondered if her mother knew that, and always guiltily dismissed the thought as spiteful and childish.

Slinging her bag down, Phi crept along to her parents' room. She poked her head around the door and sure enough, Marie Thetis was propped up in the big bed, sunk in a marshmallow sea of pillows. Phi knew that each time her mother told the future of others, she lost a piece of her own future in exchange – no profit in prophets, her mother would quip, as though that made it better. As though that would take away the desperate panic Phi felt every time she walked into that sickroom.

Once the same fiery colour as Phi's own, her mother's greying hair was loose around her shoulders. She was shrinking away, wilting like the last violets, and soon there would be nothing left of her but memories, lingering on the air like some faint, ethereal perfume.

Phi banished that thought, swallowing down the saline ache in her throat. No. She would hold on.

"Hello sweetie," her mother said, and put down the book she was reading. Her fingers were trembling, but both of them pretended not to notice. "How was school?"

"The usual. Jo was being a loudmouth. Riose was all mysterious."

"Celia eating chocolate," her mother said dryly. "Goodness knows where she puts it. That girl should be the size of a killer whale by now. As it is, she's getting squishy around the edges."

"You can't say that!" she squeaked.

However fragile her body, Marie Thetis could have stared down Medusa with those steel-grey eyes. "I can say whatever I like, darling. I'm entitled to my opinion – you don't have to agree with it."

But I do have to obey, the treacherous thought crept in. "Dad said you wanted to ask me something."

"Yes." Her voice was gentle. "Amelia Thelasso passed away last night, and the funeral's tonight. Your father's performing the ceremony, but I was supposed to be speaking the rites, and...well, that won't be happening now. I'd like you to stand in for me."

"Me? Really?"

The merpeople's last rites were an ancient tradition – from as far back as the Burning Times, it was said, and they were spoken each time they poured another pod member's ashes into the lake. They were never buried, always cremated, in a solemn reminder of their beginnings in a burning world.

"Please. The 'old barnacles', as your father insists on calling them, tell me I should be handing over some of my duties to you now you're of age. The rites are part of that."

Because you won't be around to speak them much longer, she thought with a bone-deep sorrow. That's why the old ones want you to teach me. They're waiting for you to die, as they wait for each other to.

"You have to stop looking," she said abruptly.

Her mother's lips tightened. "Phi, don't start this again."

"I mean it," she insisted. "Everybody else gets by without knowing the future. Why should we be different? If Cassie Atlantis wants to know what sex her baby is, she can go to the doctor like everyone else. And if Mr Travers wants to open a shop, he can find out if it's going to be a success the hard way."

"Why take the risk?" her mother countered, as she always did. "Ryar ap Sangager gave us the gift to be used, not to sit idle. It's just unfortunate she didn't realise the toll it would take on us." She smiled weakly. "But the pod is the better for it."

"We're not," she blurted. "Me and Dad, we aren't better. You're k-killing yourself, and I hate it!"

She inwardly cringed at the stammer – she had wanted to be cool and logical, not a crying child.

"Darling." The pity in her mother's voice was almost unbearable. "Your father understands. He wants what's best for the pod – and we want what's best for you."

"Well, let me decide!" she snapped, her intention of staying serene disappearing like a sandcastle under the surf. "I can make my own choices. I don't need you to – to arrange my life."

Marite Thetis let out her breath in a ragged whoosh. "Is that what this is about? Don?"

"I don't want to marry him." God, what an understatement.

"It's for the best. Not just for the pod, but for you too. I've seen it." The surety in her mother's voice was absolute: she had leafed through the future, and chosen the path, and all would be well if Phi would just nod and smile and obey.

"How can it be best for me?" she demanded. "I loathe him. I've never liked him, you know that – Dad knows that!"

"I know you aren't...fond of him." Her mother raised her eyebrows as if it was some churlish whim. "But I've seen it. There's such happiness in store for you, but only if we arranged for you and he to be married. I saw change – yes, darling, many changes, and that's never easy, and a journey deep into the earth...and fire. Cleansing fire, before a time of reflection, and mourning."

For her, no doubt, Phi thought. Her mother would die, and she and her father would be left to grieve. It was a dull, constant knowledge; she lived her life as if lost in smoke.

"A transformation." Her mother reached out and took her hand, her fingers thin and wizened. "And happiness, darling. Everything we've wanted for you. Try to understand."

"It doesn't matter what you've seen," she said fiercely. "He's not for me, mom. Let one of the other girls marry him – they all sigh over him anyway. Let me decide."

"And who in the pod will you marry?" her mother demanded with a flash of anger. "You don't really talk to any of them. Look at your friends, darling! Humans, vampires, a wildcat – and she's not so far away from savagery, no matter how prettily she smiles – and that witch! Not a pod boy among them."

"You never minded before." She drew her hand back from her mother, wounded in some place she hadn't known she was vulnerable.

"When your father suggested it might be nice if we encouraged you to have some – diverse – friends, I didn't complain," her mother said tightly. "The pod is too insular sometimes, and I thought you'd turn to your own kind eventually. Instead, you spend more time with those – landlubbers – than any of the pod."

Phi couldn't stifle an incredulous laugh. "Did you just call my friends landlubbers?"

"That's what they are." Marie Thetis leaned forward from the nest of pillows, her breath becoming hoarse at the effort. "They are not of us, Phi. They never will be. We are the first shapeshifters; we are the beginning, the purest, and the only ones unsullied by the Burning Times. Ryar ap Sangager made us to protect the last hope of the witches, and we kept faith. The ocean tried to swallow us up, Fireblade came to hunt us down, but we survived. K'Shaia was created to destroy us, and we survived. How do you expect your friends to understand that, or anything of what it means to be mer?"

"That doesn't make us better!" she said angrily, trying to disregard the chill sliding along her spine like a line of wintery kisses.

K'Shaia were made to destroy us, and yet Riose sends me to them to be saved.

"It does, darling," her mother said. "We are a race apart."

"Because we've kept ourselves apart!"

"Your father's words." Impatience there as her mother sagged back onto the pillows. "I've never argued his reforms, even when I didn't think them wise, but I think I let him have too free a hand with you. It's time you taken on some responsibility and start working with Don."

"Have you listened to anything I've said?" She wanted to scream, but made herself speak calmly, the first ghosts of tears pricking at her eyes. She had thought – she really had – that they would understand. "I don't love Don. I don't even like him. He's rude, he's arrogant, he's cruel-"

"Is this over that little incident when you were children?" Her mother pounced. "He's grown up."

"Great," she threw back. "Now he's just a bigger bully."

"Rubbish. You've never given the poor boy a chance."

"He's had all the chances he's getting from me." Her temper was beginning to spiral out of control. "I won't marry him."

"Will you condemn us both to death, then?" her mother snapped. It was unkind, and it was deliberate; Phi saw that with a distant, numb shock. "Does our oath mean nothing to you? Does our pod mean nothing?"

"No one will harm you," she said scornfully. "Our pod?"

The merpeople abhorred violence; even arguments were hushed and rare. It simply wasn't in their nature. There was no rage in their melodic laments, no hurt in their hymns, nothing but joy, and contentment, and reverence.

"You're naïve, daughter of mine." Marie Thetis closed her eyes, but when she opened them, they were as determined as ever. "We will discuss this later. Go and get yourself ready for the funeral. I expect you to do your duty for the pod. _All_ your duties."

X - X - X - X - X

Poseidon Ivan returns not as a supplicant, but like a conqueror with a swagger in his step, but a low, slow ire in his eyes. She recognises anger so easily; she has felt it all her life, that lash of injustice, of fulfilment denied.

_What is wrong, child?_ she inquires, her voice silky.

Avy ap Sangager can hear his teeth grinding at very edges of her magical senses. "Phi is going to be difficult. I don't think she'll play the dutiful daughter this time."

_Few daughters are dutiful,_ she replies, remembering how often she flouted Sangager's authority. Her brothers would wager with her to see who could enrage him most; they used to measure it by the colour of his face, she recalls fondly, and she always won. _We just take care to appear so._

He blinks, as if it has not occurred to him that she too was somebody's daughter. "Her parents are soft. She runs around with vampires and humans and they don't seem to care. If she persuades them to break the contract-"

_Did you not suggest your father made them swear blood-oath?_ If he has disobeyed her-

"He jumped at the idea," the dolphin says coldly, pacing the room in quick steps. "He's still so damn bitter that Marie turned him down for Daniel Thetis. Thirty years and he still isn't over it."

_Then where is the problem, child?_

His eyes flare with scorn, though it is not aimed at her. "He won't hold them to it. Thetis has led the pod for nearly twenty years. Marie is their beloved prophetess, saviour of their dreary daily routine. If my father kills them...but he won't."

Inside the cramped confines of her heart, Avy is laughing. Squeamishness is not new to her, but she has always had the stomach for the necessary cruelties.

_Then find someone who will. If your darling's parents believe the threat is real, I think you'll find no matter how they love their daughter, they'll make sure she keeps the promise. In fact, little shark, I think you already know the people you need._

It dawns in his eyes slowly, ugly as a battlefield sky. "Yeah. They'd do it." His smile is savage, a promise of the malice in him that she will nurture and tend like a gardener of Hades. "But what about Phi? She isn't intimidated by anything."

He speaks as if he knows; probably he does. His is a character of small petty deeds that she will craft into great and devastating ones. Like the moon tugging the wilful tide, she will turn him to her purpose.

_Then we must distract her, Poseidon. We must find someone who will cause her so much trouble she will forget her own. And this – this is where I will lend my aid. Ezekiel.  
_

He frowns, but from the shadows beside her throne, where he crouches like a royal fool once might have, Zeke stands.

They stare at each other, her two weapons; fire and water, and she feels the dislike reverberate between them. Natural opposites, the dreamer and the doer, and she knows how to exploit that enmity as she does every emotion that makes the blood dance wildly.

_He will explain,_ she says simply to the dolphin. _But you should hurry, child. Don't you have a body to weep over?_

He glances at his watch and swears, waving Zeke to follow him with an impatient hand. "I'm late. You'll have to wait until the funeral's done, but if you hide yourself near the lake-"

"I know a place," her pet says mildly, surprising her. Is that where he spends his nights, staring at the waters? Have the fires in him truly burned out – no, no, she remembers his defiance, his anger. Something still simmers, insignificant though it is. What then fascinates him there?

And then they are gone, and she is alone again, to drown willingly in her memories.

X - X - X - X - X

After dinner, Celia cut through town to the spacious house out on the edge of civilisation. Unlike most of the buildings, it was new, a pale blue that glowed in the ramshackle street.

She stepped up and rang the doorbell, mentally wincing as 'Wild Thing' played out in jangling chords.

The foxy, mistrustful face of Aspen Martin, her sister's fiancé, peered round the door. "Hello wench," he said, beckoning her into the hallway, "It's been a while."

"This place is a tip," she informed him, stepping gingerly over heaps of mail. "Mom said she's visiting next Thursday, so you might want to tidy up before then."

"Oh god." The vampire sounded horrified, as well he might. Her mother was determined to hammer her moral code into Aspen. "I'll call a cleaner."

The living room, like the rest of the house, was appallingly cluttered; when he'd lived with her family, fear of her mother had kept Aspen's mess under control. Now, unleashed in the bachelor pad, it was vast and uninhibited; plates were piled everywhere and pieces of car engines littered the floor.

"Who is it?" a voice rough as raw velvet called from the kitchen. "Aspen, can you take the brat? He keeps – no, you little monster – trying to eat my damn coffee!"

"It's Celia," the vampire shouted back. "Make yourself comfortable, Cee, I'll go and get Zane."

She swept the detritus off the boys' long, squashy couch, clearing space. No one quite knew what had passed between Aspen and the sister he almost never spoke of, but the result had been Aspen coming back from wherever he called 'home' with Zane.

Celia had always thought she adored children until she'd met Zane Martin, whose penchant for biting, kicking, and squirming was rivalled only by a set of lungs that would have made Pavarotti weep and promise to lose half his body weight if he could just have that raw power.

Her surrogate big brother came back in and it was easy to see that Zane and Aspen were two peas from the same malformed pod. Same strange, dual-changing eyes; same childlike smile, same dark hair.

"Aunty C!" howled Zane, promptly kicking Aspen so he was free to toddle over and bite her on the leg before she could think to stop him.

"Ouch!"

"Oops..." Aspen grabbed him, settling the boy on his lap. "Sorry, Cee. He's been feisty all day."

She rubbed her calf, grimacing . "Well, he didn't draw blood this time. How've you been, big bro?"

As ever, the endearment brought a smile to his face, too gaunt even after years of her mother's brisk but loving regime. Aspen was all edges and bones, slight but gracefully built. Those bizarre eyes, sliding from hue to hue at every moment, were more self-assured now than they once had been.

"Overworked," he said. "Between Zane and the garage, I haven't had a moment's peace."

"No one in this house has," came the biting tones of Vaje Chusson, coyote shapeshifter and Aspen's delectable housemate, who strolled out of the kitchen holding two cups of coffee and wearing nothing – oh, lovely - but a towel.

"Doggie!" screamed Zane, pointing at the shapeshifter.

"Still at the point and name stage, then," she said.

Unsuccessfully trying not to grin, Aspen stage-whispered, "Vaje wasn't very happy when Zane kept throwing sticks at him."

Vaje ignored both Martins. "Hey, Cee. Cap-perfect-cino. Just how you like it."

"Coffee _and_ you half-naked?" she quipped, enjoying the way Vaje instantly hitched his towel up. "What did I do to deserve this?"

"Your obsession with nudity isn't healthy," the coyote shapeshifter muttered.

"Neither is your obsession with coffee," she retorted, taking the mug. It smelled wonderful, thick and rich as molten chocolate. "But I don't see you cutting back."

Vaje glowered at her, and just to infuriate him, Celia ogled him from towel to damply curling hair and wolf-whistled. Looking incensed, he shot out of the room as if the hordes of hell were after him.

Aspen's chuckle broke the silence. "You're an evil, evil girl. So what's the occasion? Not that I mind the visit, you're welcome any time."

She took a sip of the cream-crammed, sugar-loaded, caffeine-saturated slice of sin that was Vaje's coffee and sighed, feeling the heat curdle into her bones. Delicious. "I want to know about the pod."

"The real locals," he remarked. "Does this have something to do with your friend – Phi?"

"In a way."

"Well, they're the biggest group of shapeshifters in town-"

"Isn't that the Pack?" she interrupted. It was a rare day when she didn't see at least one group of ragtag werewolves sauntering down the main street, overconfident and territorial.

He shook his head. "You'd think so, but the pod's easily ten times bigger. They're just less visible. There must be two or three hundred of them about. They founded the town – and the Thetis family's led them for as long as anyone living can remember."

"They started as pilgrims," Vaje mentioned as he stomped back in. His body was sadly hidden by a T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms that had seen better days. "How's your Nightworld history, Cee?"

"Virtually non-existent," she said with a hapless shrug.

"Typical," sighed Vaje, perching on the arm of the sofa. "Well, around thirty thousand years ago there was a massive war between the dragons and the witches – the Burning Times, we call it, and it's the reason why some of the shapeshifters get treated so badly. Towards the end of the war, a dragon princess called Ryar ap Sangager, who betrayed her own people to fight for the witches, made the dolphin people to take away some of the witches' children. Brave lady."

"They have some weird quirks because of it," put in Aspen. "Rather than being born, they were made, and so their powers are..." He searched for the word.

"Immaculate," supplied Vaje finally, his voice strangely soft. "They've kept their blood pure over the years – Ryar made so many of them, they've rarely intermarried. Arranged marriages are a key part of life in the pod, though it's becoming more difficult to enforce." His eyes were piercing, and unnervingly blank. "That is why you've come here, isn't it? Because of Phi and Don Ivan?"

How had he known? "Yes...but..."

"I have some friends in the pod," he said, and flashed a charming, crooked grin. "They think Marie Thetis pushed for this marriage, and they think she's wrong to do it. But they're old now, and their opinion doesn't count for much. And god knows that woman's stubborn as hell."

"The grapevine's got Ivan down as Daniel Thetis's successor," Aspen said mildly, "and the prophecies have been saying it for years. Though prophecy's a double-edged sword, and it's tearing that pod apart while they think it's saving them."

That philosophical statement was so unlike Aspen that she stared. For all his shrewdness, Aspen wasn't much given to social commentary. Glancing over, she saw Vaje wearing a similar astounded expression.

"When did you start channelling Confucius?" Celia leaned over to prod Aspen, careful not to touch the now-sleeping Zane. "Fess up, big bro, those aren't your words."

Aspen inclined his head. "Maybe not, but Iry Lupine knows what he's talking about."

Iry, the irascible lone wolf who lived deep in the Ghost Roads was half-legend, half disappointing reality. Longevity hadn't aged him much, except for splatters of grey in his hair and a tendency to paranoia. Someone had told her he'd been around for nearly two hundred years.

"How is the old maniac?" Vaje enquired. "And why were you talking to him about the pod?"

"Still healthy, and leaving bear-traps in the garden," grumbled Aspen. "And he talked to me about it. I was just painting over the rust on that banged up Chevy he's so fond of. He thinks they're overusing their prophets."

"You don't have to be a genius to know that," said the coyote, his mouth curling so the tiny burns on his cheek pulled tight and shiny. "I went to see Marie Thetis on behalf of the Elders. The woman's dying – no, she's killing herself, looking into the future over every damn decision."

"She won't stop." She couldn't keep the pity from her voice. The change in Mrs Thetis had been drastic; Phi's mother had become a pale, shimmering skeleton, ageing before her eyes.

"Stupid bloody woman thinks the pod will fall apart if she doesn't tell them what the weather's going to be tomorrow," snarled Vaje, glaring down at his coffee. "God knows why she doesn't just look at the lottery numbers for next week – then she'll never have to worry about them."

"Iry said prophecy isn't meant to be used friv-frivol-" Aspen gave up.

"Frivolously." Vaje shrugged. "It isn't, though the fire and earth-based seers don't suffer like the dolphins do."

"That's true..."

Celia was starting to realise just how little she knew about the intricacies of the Night World – of her best friend's daily life. Had she just not paid attention? She was confused, unbearably so, and it must have been mirrored on her face.

"See," the coyote explained to her, "prophecy was originally a power that only the most powerful dragons had. In the Burning Times, they gave it as a reward to faithful minions. Fireblade gave the Jubatus family the gift, though they see in fire rather than water. When Hael made the first witches, they saw in smoke, though over time, they've learned other mediums – anything with air in will work. But Ryar gave the dolphins prophecy to protect them, and I think she did it in haste - I don't think she would have intended it to kill them. Maybe it wasn't meant to be used often."

"She didn't think about people like Phi's mom, then," muttered Celia.

Vaje grunted. "Who the hell does? I walked in, and the bloody woman had made me coffee just how I like it, what a waste of her gift, not to mention her fragging life, and then she thanked me for naming my third child after her. My third? I don't even have one!" Sudden, fleeting sadness crossed his face, and was gone just as swiftly. "Not anymore."

"Want mine?" offered Aspen thoughtfully. Celia had to restrain a giggle at the appalled look that suggestion got.

"Zane's not a child, he's the living proof of Murphy's Law," Vaje told him. "Anything else you want to know, Cee?"

"How do you break blood-oath?" she said.

From the heavy silence in the room, they obviously hadn't heard that tidbit of information.

"Explain." There was a thunder-headiness to Vaje's voice, and she was at once very aware of his inhumanity. "Fast."

"Phi's parents and Don's swore blood-oath on their marriage contract," she said, and at the look on Vaje's face, quickly jumped over the back of the couch.

"They WHAT?" he shouted, his enraged face appearing above her. "Celia Slone, tell me this is some kind of joke you and Riose thought up!"

"Don't scream," she heard Aspen say, as she stared into Vaje's smouldering eyes, which had an alarming red tint to them. "If you wake Zane, you're singing him to sleep, and until you've done thirty renditions of the Teletubby song in the style of Frank Sinatra, you've never known pain."

"Don't be fatuous," rapped the coyote, all his attention still on her. "God, you aren't kidding, are you."

"Is it that bad?" she said, poisonous fright setting in. What had Phi gotten into? She had thought it was Night World politics – that it was just an ordinary situation wrapped up in the Night World's jargon and archaic laws, breakable as any other. Vaje's reaction said otherwise.

"Blood-oath. God."

"No one does it anymore," explained Aspen patiently, as she clambered up from the floor. "Well, except the Furies."

That was twice today that she'd heard them mentioned, and both times in similar circumstances. Celia could count the number of times she heard their name whispered before on the fingers of both hands.

The Furies aren't like anyone else, she told herself. Even in the Nightworld, they are a race apart, and they are feared.

"Did you...ever run into anyone from the Furies when you were..." Celia waved a hand, trying to think of a polite way to put it. "In that line of business?"

She knew Aspen had been an assassin – it had slipped out in a drunken confession one night - and it explained an awful lot that she hadn't understood when he lived with them. His late-night visitors. His trips away. His complete inability to watch horror films without criticising the psychopath's knife technique.

Celia knew it as a fact in the same way that she knew that Pluto orbited the Sun; a dim, distant thing that didn't really affect her life, interesting to think about, but not quite real, somehow.

Vaje's eyebrows shot up. "Martin...have you been telling the nice girl porkies?"

There was a definite pink tinge to Aspen's face. "Not...really."

"What's going on?" she said guardedly, looking from one to the other.

"I..." Her big brother rubbed the back of his neck. "Kind of used to be involved with the Furies."

"Involved how?" Her mind couldn't take it in. Aspen couldn't have worked for the Furies; that was stupid. How could anyone so, so gentle, so timid, so very...careful, her mind supplied. He's always careful, like he's afraid something he does might make us leave him. He's so afraid of being alone.

Maybe it wasn't just self-doubt that made him so wary. Maybe some of those sad shadows in his face were from what he had done, not what had been done to him.

He was shaking, she saw, the old, lunatic fear crashing back into his eyes like it had when he'd wake up screaming from nightmares that he wouldn't talk about. When he spoke, his voice was a child's voice, uncertain. "I used to run Pursang."

Celia stared at him. "No."

"Very much yes," Vaje said calmly, crossing his arms. "He ran it, and I used to work for him. We're both Furies, girl, and we know just what happens if you try and break a blood-oath."

She covered her face with her hands, not wanting Aspen to see her reaction, not wanting to hurt him. "Oh...god."

X - X - X - X - X

Almost all of the pod had turned out for the funeral, dressed in mourning finery; not black, but the heady blue of their last resting place, of sky and sea and maybe oblivion. They stood in their families, children hushed by parents, forming a loose semi-circle around the jetty of the lake as the funeral pyre blazed, the fire popping loudly in the summer evening.

One face, though, was noticeable by its absence. Don wasn't here, and Phi felt glad of it, even as part of her recognised how unusual that was. Unlike her, he played the part of dutiful son to perfection, with flattering fawning to his elders, glowing like some handsome angel among the dark, lithe merpeople.

His father was there, a large, imposing man with a halo of thinning hair that had darkened to gold as he aged, and would soon become the premature grey of all the merpeople. Laurence Ivan was only here because her mother was not; even after thirty years, there was a stiffness between them Phi could not fail to recognise.

"Not long now," her father murmured. He'd gone out of his way to greet the Ivans, but Laurence's reply had been perfunctory, mere feigning. "Thank goodness the wind's blowing onto the lake."

The odour of the pyre, smoky and thick, mingled with the pungent herbs the body was liberally swaddled in, could not quite mask the underlying aroma of burning flesh. It was not uncommon for the close family to arrive after the balefire had died, but today the Thelassoes were all here, heads high.

The pyre was smouldering gently when she realised Don had crept in; he was stood beside his father, looking appropriately solemn, theirs the only two blond heads in the entire pod, and that intense stare was fixed on her.

No one could quite explain how Don had sprung from his parents; though Laurence was handsome in a rough, rugged way, and his wife had a certain washed-out prettiness, neither held a candle to their son. He had the best of both his parents, and the blessings of some divine artist beyond that, and he shone out in the pod like a sunlit idol.

There was a delicacy to his features that was almost androgynous, as if a benevolent artist had taken care in smoothing out the planes of his face, drawing the generous curve of his mouth with simple grace, painting in those ocean eyes with deftness.

She stared back steadily, hoping he could read what she was thinking. Not you. Never you.

I will sell my soul to the Furies and all their dark, bloody horrors before I give myself willingly to you, she vowed. I will not be your plaything,

His voice, always shockingly gentle, eased into her mind like he might slide into her bed, smooth and naked of all his ambition. _Don't fight me over this. Don't be a fool, Phi._

_You'd rather I marry one?_ she slung back flatly, as the last pallid webs of smoke drifted over the lake, and her father stepped forward to gather the ashes. _Why did you agree to this?_

There was a curious grimness to his voice. _It was necessary._

Her father was speaking then, commiserating with the family, and she broke off to listen to him. She had liked Amelia Thelasso, who'd never hesitated to speak her mind or howl with laughter at the pod children's pranks, and she deserved respect.

"...it's good to see so many of you here," her father finished. "Amelia was much loved, even by those of us who got bruised shins from her infernal cane."

"She only gave you a whack when you were impertinent, boyo," grumbled Amelia's husband from the crowd, a grizzled figure. That was the way of the pod; interruptions were allowed, and everyone invited to share their memories.

"Odd," her father remarked with a roguish grin. "I seemed to have permanent marks."

"That's because you were always impertinent." The old man cackled, and pointed a finger at him. "You and that other whippersnapper...Laurie – thick as thieves, the pair of you, and always causing trouble. You here, Laurie?"

"For Amelia – of course," called back Don's father, his voice cool. "Her cookies were famous."

"For being dreadful," one of the pod shouted cheerfully, and the next hour was spent reminiscing over her life, each person listened to, laughter often rippling up through the air, and if tears were mingled with it too, there were plenty of hands to offer comfort. The children sat around, often bored, while the teens listened politely, even if they had little to say.

Finally, her father beckoned her, and the pair of them walked onto the jetty with slow ceremonial steps. He held Amelia's ashes, and Phi had nothing but the fluttering of wings in her stomach. There was complete silence about them, and she felt the weight of gazes on her, both burden and honour.

The waters were ruffled by the breeze, wavelets topped with foam that was turning orange in the fading sun, and carefully her father scattered the ashes into the lake. They drifted, silvery pieces darkening to grey, bobbing out, sinking, dissipating into the water.

She glanced at her father, and he nodded. Strange...tears stood in his eyes, and then she understood.

They would do this again, he and she; the two of them would stand here, to scatter another woman's ashes onto the waters, and say again the same words, and her heart would burn with this same bitter pain. She needed no prophecy to tell her that.

Let that day be distant, let it never come. Please.

She began, quiet at first, that premonition of sorrow lending a poignancy to her voice she hadn't known she could feel. "Your journey was long, and has seen its end."

Behind her, the pod took up the words, voices combining into one low chant.

"May the ocean take you to its deepest heart," she said simply, thinking of Amelia, and of her mother, who seemed as one. "Fly in its storms, sleep in its tides."

She found unanticipated tears clinging to the corner of her eyes, and blinked them back, forcing her voice to be clear and strong, carrying easily back to them. "And may the waters bring you back to us on the foam of every wave - until we are one."

"Until we are one," they said in unison, and there was a long hush before people filed down the jetty to say their farewells. The family were the last of the procession, and aged, half-blind Mr Thelasso last of all, refusing to lean on anyone.

"That was well done, girl," he told her kindly, dabbing at his eyes. "Very well done indeed."

"Thank you," she said, and surprising herself, gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Careful now," he warned, giving her a leathery grin. "You'll give an old man a heart attack, making advances like that."

She laughed, despite the solemnity of the occasion and he nodded, as if for a job well done.

"He's right," her father murmured when they were last two on the jetty. "You did well, Phi. I'm proud. Most of us are going to the Thelassoes for a quiet coffee and some not-so-quiet nostalgia. Are you coming, or heading home?"

She gazed over the waters, that brief moment of humour gone. "I...think I'll stay here for a little while."

"All right," he said, and gave her a hug. "Don't be home too late."

"I'll look after her," a dry voice said, and Don Ivan stepped onto the jetty, elegant in his dark blue suit, the colour of shark-skin. "I want to talk to Phi anyway, Mr Thetis. We have some things to sort out."

Her father raised his eyebrows. "I'm sure you do. Tell your father it was good of him to come tonight."

"I'm sorry he didn't come to Danielle's funeral," the dolphin said unexpectedly. There was an expression Phi hadn't expected to see on his face; regret, lovely and ethereal. "I tried to convince him, but...he...Mrs Thetis..."

"I know," her father said heavily. "Don't worry about it, Don. It's all troubled water under the bridge. Goodnight kids." He roused a strained, if credible grin. "Don't do anything I'm going to find out about."

Oh my god, he's treating us like a pair of lovebirds. The thought was ghastly.

Then the two of them were alone, and she was afraid.

_You never wanted time to end; to let my life offend  
It's time to realise what hides deep inside your holy eyes._

X - X - X - X - X

Thanks for reading! Comments adored.


	4. Chapter Four

Thank you **very **much to all you fabulous, amazing, stupendous people who reviewed last time round; Mental Twitch, Izzy, Shards of Ice, dogs die in hot cars, K'Ranna, Queen Kat, Shelli, yutakalamia, Cianna Greenwood, and last but infinitely not least, the lovely CalliopeMused. You guys rock :)

Your thoughts would be utterly adored, pored, revered, cheered and occasionally feared – I'd love to hear what you think, and criticism is always welcome!

The lyrics come from Josh Radin's gorgeous _Winter_.

**Ripples Part Four**

_I don't have to make this mistake,  
And I don't have to stay this way  
If only I would wake. _

For a moment, there was silence between them as her father's footsteps faded away. The evening light slanted down onto Don, lending a warm glow to his skin and swirling, drowned shadows to his eyes. She trod down hard on her fear, her jaw tense with determination.

Poseidon Ivan wasn't a dolphin. He was a shark – she saw that hunger in him, demanding, always wanting more.

"I won't marry you," she told him.

He rolled his eyes, as though she'd made a bad joke. "Don't be so immature, Phi."

"Wanting some control over my own life is immaturity?" She wanted to punch him, dig her fingers into his skin and watch him bleed. Instead, she pulled in her anger, packed it tightly into barbed words.

"You've known the score your whole life," he told her simply, sitting himself down on the thin grass by the lake. Tipped up, his face was sweet, an angelic lie. "Everyone in the pod has arranged marriages, since the dawn of time, right up to our parents. Don't tell me you weren't expecting this."

She hadn't been: she had thought things were different. Look at her friends, look at her parents – they broke their arranged marriages.

But it had all been illusion, nothing but an extended class trip before she was reeled back into pod life, hooked and twitching.

He must have read her expression, because the corners of his mouth leapt up. "You really weren't, were you? My god, you are naïve. A Thetis daughter? The blood of the seers? Phi...did you really think they'd risk the gift slipping away?"

"I don't have the gift," she whispered. Nothing but the dreams that scorched her nights, promises of flickering fire, and a pair of copper eyes that stared at her from a mask of bruises. "I never have-"

"But your children might," he pointed out. His smugness stung her like nettles. "They tell me I'm the most powerful shapeshifter the pod's seen in decades, which has a certain ring of truth to it. And you – well, you're no seer, and you've got that nasty little streak of temper-"

Phi wondered if he knew she was crushing that particular vicious streak down so hard that her head rang with the effort.

"-but you've got a voice like no other, and they reckon you'll have power too, if you ever dare to find it."

"Most of the pod have at least some choice," she informed him. "I'm not marrying you just so you can use me as your claim to the damn throne."

"Your father's no king." As he squinted up at her, she wished she could better read his gaze. It was fierce with ambition, yes, always that – and other, unidentifiable things too. "But I won't deny that marrying his daughter would give some...comfort to the old barnacles who seem to think I'm not made of the right stuff. The Thetis stuff, in this case."

"Everyone knows Dad's had you lined up to succeed for years," she said shortly. Panic was beginning to spiral up under her ribcage, but she had to be in control. "You don't need to marry me for that. God, just marry one of the others – Sophia, or Grace, or any of them, they all slobber over you. They worship you just the way you like."

"Wedding you will win the opposition." His fingers scrunched into the ground with worrying force. Phi found herself staring at his hands, because the expression on his face was awful – a shifting, shuddering rage.

"What opposition? There's no one else-"

"There's you."

That was...stupid. "What? I've never wanted to lead!"

"That's exactly why the old barnacles say you should." He spat on the ground. "Oh, never where your mother might hear, but your father listens, and I can see him turning it over. They say you understand life outside the pod – that you'll teach us to live among the town, not apart from it. Little Phi," he mimicked in a quavery voice. "Ivan's daughter, she's a good lass, smart, a bit headstrong, aye, but she'll do well for us."

"I can't help what they say," she whispered, stunned.

No one had so much as hinted anything to her – and she would have run far and fast if they had. She went to the evening swims, and sang as joyously as the others, but she preferred to chat with the old barnacles, because they were like her – they had outsiders for friends. Mr Thalassoe loved to tell how he'd had to fight a handsome werewolf to win Amelia's heart, and Jess Arryn would relate the most scandalous tales about the three witches she used to run about with.

"It's nothing to do with me," she insisted.

"Of course you'd say that." Don's eyes were vicious needles. "You don't give a damn about our pod - you're only there because you have to be! You don't care about their problems because you think your land-locked little friends are so much better. All I want is to make our pod strong, for our people to be as proud as we were, but they want _you_."

He was breathing hard, and she almost felt pity for him. She wasn't as popular with their own generation as he was; she didn't care much for her parents' peers, who were strait-laced and strict, but the elders, yes, she did love them. Her own grandparents were dead, and so the barnacles had made her theirs, the grandchild of them all.

"I don't want to lead," she said very slowly, enunciating each word so it was a precise stab. "The pod is yours. But I am not. Never."

"This is non-negotiable," her unasked-for fiancé informed her. "Even if you don't want to lead, those griping old barnacles will cause trouble. Do you think we can afford to be divided? The Pack is growing, and they have one thing we don't."

"Lice?" suggested Phi.

He muttered something under his breath that sounded like a heartfelt wish to throttle her. "Killer instinct. They want our lands. Your father's kept them at bay with a promise here and a warning there, but they're leaderless and they're desperate. I know how to fight them, but I need everyone's support. And that means I need you."

"No, you need to stop treating the elders like an inconvenience," she snapped. "Maybe you should listen to what they have to say."

"Those doddering idiots?" Don said with boundless scorn. "One or two of them have their wits left, but most of them just live to gossip and make trouble."

Despite the fact there was an element of truth to this – Jess Arryn had been known trip handsome young men into the lake in a sort of DIY wet-T-shirt contest – she couldn't help but think him a fool. Didn't he see how her father sought their opinion, didn't he know that the pensioners were the ones who paid the lease on the lake, who negotiated with the Ryars Valley Elders?

"You'll have to win them without me."

"In case you've forgotten, there's blood-oath resting on this." His mouth curled into a satisfied sneer. alm had squirmed from him like an eel, baring the ambition beneath. "No one can help you worm out of that."

"The Furies can," Phi said before she even realised the idea had solidified in her mind.

Shock splashed across his features. "You're mad!" And then disbelief collapsed into ridicule, and he laughed, a rich, deep sound. "You silly little bitch, they won't lower themselves to help you – if you're lucky, they'll send you weeping back to me. Or they'll just kill you."

"It's a risk," she said. "And I'll take it."

She glimpsed the beginnings of belief in his expression. "Destroy yourself then," he said, with a too-casual shrug. "And when they send you back to pay the price of breaking oath, remember this: if you help me, Phi, I will be good to you. I will be the best husband I can."

She knew already was little joy that would be. What a drab life she would be snared in, playing courtier, servant, courtesan to his needs.

"And if you fight me," he continued, the threat swirling like a riptide in his voice, "you will find out I can be...unmerciful."

"I found that out a long time ago." She matched his cold tones, word for wicked word. "We are done. Go away."

To her silent wonder, he did.

And she did not see the small nod he gave as he passed the rushes, or feel his quiet satisfaction of a job well done. He had been fair, he could offer her no more than that. Even if she went to the Furies-

Don shook himself. But she wouldn't. Of course she wouldn't.

X - X - X - X - X

Celia spread her hands, looking from one face to the other. "How, Aspen, how could you possibly run Pursang? I mean, you can't even set the VCR!"

"Don't think we didn't ask that too," grumped Vaje.

Aspen only shrugged. "I don't think there's anyone only the planet who can program a VCR. Not even your mother," he added with the respect that most people had for Celia's competent, yet ferocious mother.

"But...I mean, you're so..." She searched for a nicer word, and came up empty. "Dumb."

"You don't need to be Einstein to know which end of a knife you stick in someone," said Vaje. "Though you're right, he is the dippiest person who's run Pursang, and I've seen a few in my time."

That time was some six hundred years, a number she still couldn't grasp when she looked at him. Only a certain strange turn of phrase gave him away. Oh yes, and the fact he had once beaten Shakespeare in a drinking contest.

"I was just there at the right time," Aspen said quietly. His hands were trembling around his sleeping nephew. "They thought I'd make a useful figurehead, you know? Young, not too bright, easily led. And they were right – only it wasn't them doing the leading. You can thank the Demon Fury for that. He taught me a lot. Eventually, I could lead them, and I was good at it."

There was a hint of pride in his words. She wanted to think him monstrous, but couldn't. This was Aspen, soft and sweet as whipped cream, who worshipped the ground her sister walked on, who woke up sobbing sometimes, and maybe he was someone else's long-lost nightmare, but not hers.

Vaje wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, you were good. You were just what we needed – new ideas, a bit of flash and dazzle to make people remember just why the Furies aren't to be messed with."

"Thank the Demon." Aspen smiled thinly, his mismatched gaze the blues and greys of rain-soaked skies. "He made me what I was."

"But the Furies are the best," she said without thinking.

No, it wouldn't register; she had dimly grasped both of them killed for money, but in her mind, it was justified, it was all somehow – warranted. She'd imagined them destroying the cruel overlords, the rapists, the monsters who fitted her secure world only when they were locked tight and lifeless into the grave.

But the Furies...they killed and tortured for anyone who could afford their deadly impartiality.

"No," Aspen said in a voice that made her spine chill, a slow and prickly sensation. "We're the worst."

His hands had stopped trembling, and his face was set – unreadable – and then she looked into his eyes, and what she saw there terrified her.

That wasn't Aspen. That wasn't anyone she knew. That wasn't even anything living. Those eyes dropped away like the abyss into Hades, slick with indifference, and empty, so empty she thought someone had bled out his soul and left only this great jagged hollow.

Oh god, oh god, was that what he really was? How had she missed it? It was all an act – she had been fooled, supremely fooled and-

She didn't know she was cowering until Vaje's hands closed on her shoulders. He'd moved behind her while Aspen – no, while the Fury – held her captivated, frozen by his inhumanity.

She screamed.

"Easy." Vaje's hands were warm as his voice, and she craned her neck, half-afraid his face would be the same glassy horror. But there was just his usual sceptical smile, so comforting Celia wanted to cry. "That's why he ran Pursang, Cee. The best are cold. Or they can at least pretend to be. Aspen, stop it, you've scared the hell out of her."

"I meant to." Aspen's voice held a hint of defiance.

She didn't want to look at him, but made herself. Normal once more – Aspen's querying eyes, always asking, always needing, human and desperate. Not empty, but full of a thousand trivial emotions.

"You had to know," he said softly. "Tam could never handle it, Cee, but you – you're like your mom. You can handle anything."

She nodded dumbly, not believing him. Vaje was gently stroking her shoulders, as if she were a quivering kitten. Worse – it was making her feel safe.

"You need to know what you're going to be dealing with," Aspen continued solemnly, and that made a small, panicked spark leap through her.

"Dealing with?"

"Dealing with?" echoed Vaje, rather more loudly. "You do not mean what I think you mean!"

The vampire gave her a shaky smile. "You want to know how to break blood-oath, right, Cee?"

"Phi needs to know." Her lips felt tingly. Was this shock? "Which...which Fury were you?"

"We didn't have nicknames when I-"

"He was the Lunatic Fury," cut in Vaje. "And this, Martin, this is madness!"

Aspen looked put out. "The Lunatic Fury? No one ever mentioned that to me."

"You were certifiable at the time. Think we were stupid enough to say it to your face? On a good day, you'd have tried to garrotte something, possibly even the person who said it if you were in a saner mood. And you can't break blood-oath, Martin, we both know that."

"Wrong. It's been done. There's a record of it."

"Since when do you read records?" snapped the coyote. "I spent fifty years working on the archives, and I've never seen anything of the sort. That question's come up before, and no one breaks blood oath!"

Celia felt like an unfortunate piece of prey caught between them; though Aspen was talking to Vaje, his eyes pleaded with her, begging her not to be afraid of him. But she knew – and he knew – that fear would always be there now, remembered even when unfelt.

"It's not in the main archives," Aspen revealed. "The head of Pursang has a...private collection, and it's required reading. It's been broken, twice, but I can't recall the details. I'll need to ask To-the Grieving Fury if I can borrow them."

"You know the Grieving Fury!" she squeaked, and cursed herself. Of course he did.

"She's a good woman," Vaje said thoughtfully. "And she'll help. If there's one thing she knows about, it's being trapped."

"But she'll ask a price," said Aspen, mouth set in a grim line. "And she'll ask it from both of us, Cee. That's why you need to understand about the Furies. If you think I'm dangerous, try crossing the Grieving Fury."

"Vaje said she was good," she pointed out.

"She is," her big brother muttered. "But she's one good woman trying to fight the rest of the Furies. She plays for the greater good – and sometimes that means sacrifice. Of herself...and of us."

"I get it," Celia told him, even though later, she would think that she hadn't understood at all. He had said _price_, and she had thought: money, or time. He had said _price_ and meant: one way or another, you will pay.

Later, she would rue those words.

"I'll ask her, then." His eyes dropped. "You'd better get home, Cee. I'll give you a ring as soon as I know."

"Talk to Riose," said Vaje unexpectedly. "He's – got family in the Furies. And try not to judge him for it."

Compared to the rest of the evening's news, that was a glass of water to the face after standing underneath Niagara Falls.

A thoughtful nod from Aspen – she saw him, then, in a new, icier light. Not the barely-grown child she had thought, but a man torn, struggling against what he was trained to be and what he wanted to be.

Tam doesn't know, she thought. She knows about the nightmares, and his ferocity, but the part of him that died for the Furies? No.

He was protecting her from it, and yes, protecting himself too. God, how hard it must be for him. He was trying to turn himself into a dreamy ideal – a father, a husband, a brother – to fill that emptiness with the clumsy clutches of humans, trying so hard, terrified of failing.

It was difficult, but she made herself cross the room and kiss Aspen on the forehead. "Take care of yourself and the brat," she advised. "And you still owe me dinner one night, okay?"

"Okay." Gratitude poured through that word.

X - X - X - X - X

She wears her memories like a tiara, the only decorative and lovely thing left about her.

Many have wondered what she is, how she survived the leisurely scrape of time, even sagging and sour as she was. They guessed her age in a casual lottery, falling far short.

Avarice, they whispered, and thought she was named for her sin, not that the sin had been named for her.

Avy burned with wanting; she always had. The brilliant and beautiful drew her in any form. She drank in the elegance of philosophy with a greed that startled her tutors, and spent summers roaming to the edges of her father's kingdom, eating up the lands. She stalked down men who caught her eye, and honed her wit on them. If they were promised to another, well no matter, what she wanted – she would have.

Nothing really held her, for there was always more to lust for, so she left a trail of discarded toys in her wake, made tawdry by her very touch, though she knew it not.

To give in to Avarice became a murmured code among her people, and they used it of the men she took to her bed as easily as they did of the fashions she stole and spawned.

Only one man had ever kept her heart. She had never really possessed him, and so she yearned for him still.

Fireblade had been the only man to use her as she had used everyone after him. He had been her father's Champion, the foremost warrior and advisor to the court. Treacherous, powerful, charismatic, he was admired by most, and feared by all.

He had been Avy's first consort – no casual matter among the dragons, for whom their first sexual experience was the first full flowering of their powers. And he had abandoned her, shunning her offer of marriage, his words curt and cruel, trimmed with laughter. The ridicule had cut more than the words.

"Darling, darling," Fireblade had said with a sham of care. "Did you think this was about love? You've lived in your father's court all your life – surely you know that it's about power, and you just don't have enough."

In the end, he had gifted her Zeke; 'a little something of myself to keep you satisfied', his note had taunted. She had crumpled it in her hand, and wept.

And then, because she was a princess, and proud, she held up her head, and found something else – everything else – to want in his place. It never sated her, but left her ever-searching, voracious, greedy to regain what she had lost.

When war had come, she had lost something more. In the midst of her slack, decomposing skin, the scars were no longer visible. The places where her three horns had once sat.

They said dragons were immortal; that to remove the horns was to make them human. It was not true. Removing the horns split them from their natural power, as one might pluck the teeth from an alligator, and killed their ability shapeshift with their youth, but they retained their extraordinary lifespan. And so, when the war had severed her from her horns, she lived on, burning for revenge.

Zeke was but one of her possessions then, a wisp of woodsmoke she kept locked away. First of the djinn, trapped within his lamp.

And she was not powerless. Far from it. She had lost her natural power, but as witches did, she could learn to use stores of magic. They used gems, plants, the ground itself.

But in the aftermath of the war, she had found something far darker, and oh, deliciously powerful.

She had kept her severed horns, and the power remained in them, though she could no longer reach for it. And in those frantic years after the war, as the last of the dragons fled before the encroaching witches, she began to harvest her own people.

Communities existed; she would stumble across them, produce a name and a tragic story. For a while, she would live among them, earning their trust, selecting the strongest. Men most often, who would fall to her charms. Seduction needed no power; it was a gentler kind of magic.

And when she judged the time right, she would lure her chosen one away, wait until they slept, and cut off their horns for her own. Their bodies, she left for the scavengers – by then, she was moving on, in search of her next crop.

The centuries had passed, and she felt herself age, if more slowly than humans, horrified at the brittle weakening of her body. But she had her little bag of horns, a clatter of power, and so she slowed the onset of time however she could.

In ancient Africa, when her body was still young and smooth, they pronounced her a god's daughter, and wed her to a shaman. In Egypt, she ruled as a temple priestess, grey haired but taut and tanned, while in Greece, they called her Medusa, and claimed that spotty upstart Perseus slew her. By the time the Britons built Stonehenge, she was Saille, the willow-woman, her skin rough and flaking as bark, her voice barely there, and in Rome, her last brush with civilisation for aeons, she was a harpy, croaking death from her hideous, shrivelled form.

All the while, she clutched her power close, and searched for a way to restore her youth and beauty. Once she had wanted a thousand trivial things. Now she wanted just one.

At last she had found a way.

She would be Avy ap Sangager, siren, seductress, wonder, and her beauty would blast through men's eyes to rupture their hearts; they would die from her glory, and die happy. And she would live forever and ever, and never want anything more.

_The walk has all been cleared by now  
Your voice is all I hear somehow  
Calling out winter  
Your voice is the splinter inside me  
While I wait. _

X - X - X - X - X

Huge thanks for reading :) I'd adore hearing your thoughts.


	5. Chapter Five

Thank you hugely to everyone kind enough to comment on the last part: you are wonderful. Thanks to: **yukatalamia, Shards-of-Ice, leian, Sh33rs, Cianna Greenwood, Bex Drake, Marie Vulffe, K'ranna, Shelli, Enigmatic Piscean** and last but by no means least, the wonderful **CalliopeMused**.

I hope you enjoy: I adore hearing your thoughts and comments, and criticism is always welcome.

Huge thanks and sunshine go out to the amazing Persephone, who went through this with a fine-toothcomb and improved it vastly.

Lyrics belong to the Foo Fighters _Tired of You _(Album: One By One).

**Ripples Part Five**

_I can be your liar;  
I can be your bearer of bad news.  
Sick and uninspired by the diamonds in your fire,  
Burning like a flame inside of you -  
Is this just desire or the truth?_

She was born from water, but Zeke thought that right now, she was drowning.

Delphine Thetis was a taut stream of motion; her fingers scrubbed furiously through her hair, that deep russet colour that made him think she should have been born from fire, born to blaze through the dreams of men.

"Bastard," she snarled at the sky, voice choked. "Bastard, revolting, scheming, noxious bastard."

It was an apt description of Don Ivan. Zeke had seen a dozen like him, seeking out Avy and her legend. Each before him had failed her; still she decayed, still he was her prisoner. Yet this time, he had sensed some spark of interest in Avy – there was something different about Don.

And now, the possibility of freedom ached sweetly along his bones.

In return, one small task: distract this girl.

No matter how much he liked her verve and ferocity, he would still tangle her up in chaos and hand her to Don. What was this small gesture against his freedom? He'd been trapped for thirty thousand years, what was one brief lifetime against that?

He should distract her now. Start a small fire – the reeds were dry and crispy, it would take only the scantest breath of power to set them alight. Sneak away; pretend he'd seen the blaze. He should-

Wait...what was she...?

She was stripping her clothes off, balling them up so puffs of dust rose as she flung them onto the ground.

Part of him felt obliged to avert his eyes – the other part, glorying in this unexpected voyeurism, drank her in. The wide pale curve of her shoulder, slanting into a swimmer's body, solid and toned; she was built for power, not grace, without the slenderness he might have expected from someone still growing into her shape and herself.

She stepped awkwardly down to the lake, moving as if her body was an ill-fitting glove she struggled to fill.

And then a thought struck him with the force of an avalanche. Horror bloomed in his heart, stealing his breath.

How many nights had he come here, to hear The Lady of the Lake? What if...she was Delphine Thetis? How could he weigh his freedom against hers?

It can't be her, he tried to tell himself. Look at her. She's so ordinary – barely more than human.

And then her feet slid into the water, and a change drew over her.

She stood differently, straighter, holding herself with pride and ease. The moonlight haloed her body, silhouetting the arch of her hips and the ride of her breasts.

And though the hair that she tugged free from the loose ponytail was russet, and not moon-pale, it could have been another woman standing there, one of the few to treat him as more than a gifted animal. She too had stood under the moonlight, but before the ocean, coaxing it back to her, breaking the waves with a haphazardly blown kiss.

Ryar ap Sangager, dragon princess and long-gone friend, had loved the waters too, had moved like this girl.

There was a new elegance to Delphine Thetis, and as her steps sank her further into the lake, it seemed to him that she belonged there. Thigh deep now, her fingertips trailed in the lake, spreading wavelets behind her like a train.

His entire chest was parched, drawn tight and terrified. In these last months, his siren had been the only thing to keep him from burning himself up in one last towering inferno, the only escape remaining to him.

"Delphine," he whispered, tasting the name, trying to put together the glimpses of her face. Pale eyes, a stubborn mouth, but mostly, he tried to reconcile her with that voice, spinning flimsy dreams in the core of the night.

He crawled from the rushes, his eyes reflecting coppery iridescence, unaware of the swaying fog that rose from his body like heat haze.

Like Ryar, but not; he felt the hints of her power in every one of the merpeople, strongest when it wound about their evening songs, but still nothing more than a pale shadow compared to the full-throated glory of Ryar, singing out her soul. No one would ever be quite like her. The mer were, as he was, a ghostly echo of their maker's power

_Can you make people like me?_ he had asked Ryar, once. _You're Drax too._

_I could, if I wished_, she said, healing the bruise on his face. His last beating from Fireblade had been ferocious, leaving him barely able to move. _Though they would be water rather than fire. But I would not, unless the need was desperate._

_Why not?_ he'd asked. Anything to take his mind from the relentless pain.

_It would be cruel,_ she answered. _They would have only fragments of my power. And they would be like no one else living. More than human, unlike witches, less than dragons – other, alien, neither man nor beast. Why make something so broken, so outcast?_

He had turned his face away from her cool fingers. _Why indeed?_ he'd said softly.

And thirty thousand years on, he remained the only one of his kind. But desperation had come to Ryar ap Sangager, and she had made these merpeople in the merciless clutches of war, hoping someone might evade the slaughter. They had prospered, free and unscarred.

Every fibre of his body twanged with dreadful anticipation. Sing, he pleaded silently, prove me wrong, let me hear you.

But she did not; instead, he felt the brief lemony taste of her power, just a faint echo of his siren. Somewhere in the lake, a mermaid swam, but not the one who haunted him so desperately. He felt a muted, sad relief that Delphine Thetis was not his lady, yet now he had no excuse to spare her.

He was fire, beautiful and treacherous. Surely this was nothing more than his nature.

But somehow, he couldn't shake the feeling that Ryar would have been disappointed with him.

X - X - X - X - X

Phi had no voice tonight. Tired of this slow struggle against her family, she could only sink into the waters and let the drifts carry her. Back and forth, until they took her to the smooth white coffin that lay at the deepest point of the lake.

It was the reason the pod had remained here for so many years. The stone was rounded at the corners. Waters had shaped it as Don and her parents tried to shape her now; to smooth the unwanted edges of her, until she was pliant and pleasing.

And if they succeeded, she would become just as dead, her bones couched in a rattling shell. Dead and obedient, that was all Don wanted.

They thought that of you too, didn't they? she thought to the woman who was surrounded by stone walls. They thought you would let them use you, and for a while, you did.

But then you fought back. You saved an entire race from annihilation. I only want to save myself, but isn't that enough?

She expected no answer. Ryar ap Sangager was long dead, only remembered by a few dusty scholars and the merpeople. Still, circling the tomb gave her some hope, some way to fight what people thought could not be fought.

My road is darker – I must go to the Furies and beg for their help and I might not return. That's the risk, but I have to take the chance. I can't be Don's, not knowing what he is. What he might become.

The last flecks of anger dwindled in her mind, and at last she felt calm enough to leave the water.

As she reached the shallows, Phi reluctantly pushed her body back to the clumsy human form. Thrusting her hair back from her forehead, half-crawling up the pebbled shore, she stood-

There was someone there.

"Oh my god!" she squeaked, and there was a splash as she plummeted back onto her knees, water enveloping her in feeble but murky cover. "Were you watching me?"

"It was hard not to." Oh hell, it was a boy. And an unfamiliar one at that. "Naked women are incredibly distracting, you know."

Getting on your high horse when you're naked is very difficult, unless you happen to be Lady Godiva.

"No, I don't," she hissed, mind scampering through possibilities. He might be a pervert, or Pack, which were practically the same thing. All she could see was a dim shape, and while he wasn't threatening her, he wasn't going away either.

"You look uncomfortable," he commented dryly. There was a definite hint of amusement in his voice. "Why don't you get out? It looks cold."

"Not as cold as hell is right now," she said flatly. "Get lost. If you want public viewings, go to a museum."

"It's not like you've got anything I haven't seen before." The boy paused, and a thoughtful note entered his voice. "Unless you've got any mutations you'd like to tell me about."

Phi gawped. "How about my giant, pervert-slaying claws?"

"Come on," he chided, "I can see from here that you don't have any. Unless you're hiding them under that disappointingly cloudy water." It infuriated her that she couldn't see his face. She wanted to be able to hurl abuse at more than a silhouette. "Look, I saw you walk into that water, and managed to hold back from ravishing you right there and then-"

He'd been watching all that time?

"You..." she sputtered. "You filthy creep! You-"

"Unfair and untrue!" His laughter was startling, and mirthful, as if they shared some friendly joke. "I bathed last week. In this lake, no less."

Frustrated, she gathered up her power like a snowball, and threw it at him hard, intending to knock him back. Enough to tell him she wanted him gone.

To her immense surprise, it came rebounding back at her, bouncing off him in a trick she'd only ever seen from a very old vampire whose apples she'd been caught stealing. It made her head ring for a moment, before her power settled back into her skin.

Impressive. Dangerously impressive.

There was a pause, then the scrape and fizz of a match that flared. It was a tiny beacon in the night, until he touched it to a piece of driftwood. Suddenly a pool of light reached between them.

But that wood's soaked, a tiny part of her thought. It shouldn't burn, not from one tiny match.

"That was rude," he informed her. "Am I really bothering you that much?"

"Yes!" she screeched. "What are you, stupid?"

"My apologies," he said finally. First one leg came into the circle of light, then the other, clad in mud-streaked jeans that were fraying at the cuffs. "I'm – not really from these times. I didn't realise things had changed so. The wolves I've talked to here never seemed too concerned with social niceties."

Not from these times? Well, that was certainly possible. There were some very old beings in the valley, and most of them were exceedingly secretive. And the local wolf Pack was very casual about wearing their skins and nothing else.

"Well, I am from these times," she stated, hoping he would listen. "And we do not just walk around naked. At least not in front of strangers." Especially not when they're as strange as you, she added silently.

She was used to the pod seeing her body, but with a polite air of impersonality. Any young man – or woman – caught copping an eyeful, as her father so charmingly put it, would get a sharp rebuke, and assigned healthy outdoors tasks to keep their mind occupied.

None of the pod boys had ever been so blatant as this stranger.

"Oh. Um...do you want me to go away?" He sounded genuinely contrite, and Phi did feel a flash of pity for him. She'd met such Nightpeople before, faced with a world that seemed to slip between their fingers like oil.

She weighed up the offer. At least if she could see him, she could be sure he hadn't slipped off to watch her from the sloping shadows. "Cover your eyes," she ordered.

His mouth quirked. If the lake hadn't been so blasted cold, she'd have blushed. As it was, Phi settled for a scowl.

"Like this?" he said. He stepped further into the light, and now she saw him more clearly.

He was peeking between his fingers, a hopeful smile on his face. His eyes reflected the firelight eerily; not with the hollow sheen of cats' eyes, but with a metallic lustre that curved like the back of a spoon.

The coppery eyes that haunted her nightmares.

For a moment, she stared, the shock stealing her breath more surely than the icy water. Then she recovered. No human had copper eyes, but it wasn't that uncommon among the Nightworld.

"Not like that," she said dryly. "Turn your back."

With an exaggerated sigh, he obeyed. Her mind whirling, Phi scrambled out of the water, ready to kick him if he so much as twitched, clawing on her clothes. They were horribly damp, but she wasn't going to let the wind dry her off as she usually did, not with this odd – and, she had to admit, intriguing – boy here.

What if it was him she'd dreamed of? His face had been hard to make out, but if it was the same, what did it mean? Did she have some of the prophetic gift? Why had she seen him burning?

"I'm decent," she announced.

He got up and gave her an appraising glance. "Will you hurt me if I look disappointed?"

"I'll push you in the lake."

"I might drown!" he said in mock-horror, producing the saddest pair of puppy-dog eyes she'd seen in a while. "I'd sink like a ton of rocks!"

"Why, would your ego weigh you down?" she flicked at him, testing for that dancing humour she'd seen.

He grinned unrepentantly. "No, you would when I pulled you in after me."

The cheeky git! Phi tried to look outraged, but it was hard when she was trying not to smile. "You're so lucky I'm too cold to kick you." She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to fend off the chill.

"Your clothes are wet."

"Well, Mr Observant, I just got out of a lake," she said mildly. The wind was batting her with icy paws, and even the little fire he'd started didn't give off much heat.

"Just hold still," he said, a distracted note entering his voice. "I can fix that."

You can what? she thought, bemused.

And then, like the warm rush of air from a sauna door swinging open, heat danced up her feet to her head, tickling, gentle. And then it intensified, until it became fingertips brushing her skin, feathering along the tender inside of her wrist, smoothing over her collarbone.

And odd, along with that phantom touch came the darting touch of his mind. He broke onto her like a heat wave, his feelings mingling smokily into her awareness.

As curious as her, she thought, and felt the wonder in his mind and in his touch at the strange familiarity of her, of her being..._like and yet not_, those were the words that condensed from his flurried thoughts. And there was fear there too, unexplained fear that made Phi venture deeper into the hazy edges of his mind, half-forgetting this was not some brave new world but a perilous maze-

The fear roared up about her, and so too did the heat, prickling along her skin until it brought pain rather than pleasure, and she felt sweat break out on her shoulders...

He yelped. The connection snapped off, and the brisk breeze slapped back in on her. Phi found herself gasping for breath, her heart shocked and banging on her ribs in protest.

Oh no. That could not have been what she had the nasty, niggling feeling it was.

That would explain why she dreamed of him. It would, but...

"I...that wasn't meant to happen." Panic – he had moved forward, far enough into the light that she could see his aghast face. "You have to believe me, I was just trying to help!"

She opened her mouth to reassure him, but he was backing away.

"I'm sorry," he stammered, the shadows sinking over his face, so nothing but his voice floated on the air, rough with emotion. "Oh god, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you-"

"Wait!" she shouted, hearing him begin to run as if the wolves of winter were snapping at his heels. "You didn't..."

Nothing but a bundle of sounds in the distance.

"...hurt me," she finished, puzzled.

She stood for a few minutes, hoping he'd come back. When the night pressed in, light as a friend's hands, and the flush of warmth began to drain from her body, she turned for home, but the night's events spun through her mind all the way back like thread unravelling.

X - X - X - X - X

Riose Orage was snoozing peacefully over a history textbook when his mobile rang. He would have been hard-pushed to recover from the wound to his pride if he'd known how his female friends cooed over his recumbent form (far more, in fact, than they ever did when he was awake). With the tiniest of drowsy smiles, his legs curled up and his head pillowed in the crook of his elbow, he was a picture of angelic repose.

With an ungainly 'umph?', he scrabbled for the annoying sound, eyes squeezed firmly shut. Finally his hand closed on it, and he wrenched it to his ear with a sleep-furred, "Who dares disturb my slumber?"

"Who else?" Celia's voice crackled over the line, gently amused. "How much sleep do you need, Ri? Every time I ring you, you've just woken up."

"Because you insist on calling at ungodly hours like..."

"Half eleven? Very godly, Ri, mass starts in half an hour."

"Meh." Of course, Celia was hauled to church every week by her mother, who had tried to snare Riose in her ever-widening net of ferocious goodwill. "What's the occasion?"

There was a pause. From Celia, who had inherited all of her mother's diplomacy – that was, none whatsoever – this was unusual.

"I went to see Aspen," she said finally. "I wanted to find out about the Furies."

He bit down on the words he wanted to say, and bound his temper just as tightly. Aspen might have been loopier than a rollercoaster when he'd been running Pursang, but according to Vaje Chusson, he'd gained some sanity in the years between. Riose would believe that when he saw a pig piloting a 747, but Celia wasn't sounding anything more than shaken.

"And did you?"

Another hush. Then in a burst: "He ran Pursang! Oh my god, Ri, how did I miss it? He's...he decided who lived and who died, it's so crazy that I can't believe I'm even saying this, and I saw it his eyes – it was so horrible, like...like..."

As she trailed off, Riose could have filled the silence between her emotions and her voice, but he didn't. He didn't say: yes, we are hideous, we are the vile horrors of childhood nightmares, and if you ever see what really lies in us, if the mask falls away long enough for you to see the rotten things beneath, we will harrow you.

All he said was: "Carry on."

She cleared her throat. "Anyway," she said, "I asked him about blood-oath and how to break it."

"What did he say?"

"He thinks it's been done. He's going to ask the Grieving F-fury..." her voice died, and surged up again, desperately trying to conceal her fear. "...to find out about it."

Riose knew how favours worked among the Furies, and he felt a slow chill climb the ridges of his spine. "What was the price?"

"I don't know."

He slammed his fist down on his mattress. "You idiot! You...you don't just tell the Furies they can have what they want!"

Celia said quietly, "I thought what Phi wanted was more important. And I thought you'd agree. Aspen said you have family in the Furies. If you turned out okay..."

Riose froze. Was that all Aspen had said? "My sister runs K'Shaia," he said shortly. "She and Aspen used to be...business partners."

"Could...could you ask her? To help?"

Unexpected anger flared in him. Get you out of your mess? he wanted to say. No, I couldn't. I can't have friends, I can't give her your name to dangle in front of me every time she tries to lure me back into the Furies.

"I mean," she carried on, her voice strengthening. "Surely if you and Phi ask, they'll do something for her."

A quiver of bleak amusement ran through him. Dear, thoughtless Celia. She still didn't understand what she'd done; she had handed the Furies her soul, garnished with the promise of bloodletting to come, but she was more worried about Phi.

"No," he said simply. "I can't let the Furies know this is important to me. They're perverse enough to refuse her for that alone."

If she'd been in front of him, he could have sensed the rough shapes of her emotions; on a phone, he felt irritatingly disconnected.

"They don't like you?" came her startled question.

"No. My sister and I...disagree on a number of points." Like why I shouldn't treat humans as more than meat; if she had her way, you'd be locked in a cage, quiescent to our every whim; you'd be cattle, to be branded and herded and slaughtered.

"Do you think there's any chance Phi's mom and dad will change their minds?"

"No. You know they don't really approve of us."

"Her mom doesn't," corrected Celia firmly. "Her dad likes us. Well, not Finn..."

Riose grinned. "Yeah, it's strange how setting their toolshed on fire can alienate people."

"...but he thinks the rest of us are okay."

"He thinks we're fine as friends," he amended. "But I don't think he wants Phi to marry any of us. Especially not Finn. Besides, what do you want to bet Phi's mom's seen it all in a bowl of soup, or whatever it is she does?"

Silence. Both of them knew that was the kicker: the pod had never been known to ignore any advice from their prize prophetess.

"So it's the Furies, then," Celia said in a low voice.

"It has to be," he replied grimly. "There's no one else. Unless Aspen can find some kind of way out, it has to be the Furies."

"What will they do?"

He didn't want to answer: he was terribly afraid that he knew. Once he'd asked his mother why she'd left her Fury fiancée. Her answer had been short and simple.

_The Furies only have one solution to every problem. They know how to make an end, Ri-baby, but life is about beginnings._

It was all he'd known for his childhood, until he had slipped from their clutches and begun his own life.

"End it," he said obliquely.

"What does that mea-" She swore, and he heard the strident tones of Mrs Slone in the background, not unlike a parade-ground sergeant. "I have to go to Mass. You're still at the barbecue tomorrow, right?"

He smiled faintly. "Wouldn't miss it for the world." Their post-school-year barbecue rotated from house to house, and this time it was the Farriers' turn, though Finn had been conclusively banned from going near the flames.

She said a swift goodbye as her mother's voice escalated up the decibel range, and as his phone went dead, Riose was left staring at the wall.

Somehow, he had to try and prepare his friends for the Furies.

X - X - X - X - X

Zeke crouched before the headstone, shuddering, wracked with fear.

Oh god, he'd only meant to scour the damp from her clothes, but the fire had leapt to her like she was doused in petrol, and he'd felt her thoughts flickering among the heat, so terribly light and questing. How had she crept into his mind?

And he'd been so scared that the fire had nearly wrenched from his control – one more second, and she'd have burned like Aurora had.

He clamped his hands to his head, but the echoes of Aurora's screams cut jaggedly through him, and somehow her face and Delphine's face merged, two as one, aflame and afraid.

Not again, never again...

He mustn't touch her again. It was that simple.

The calm descended on him slowly, soothing the quivers from his body, leaving determination behind. He didn't understand why she had drawn his power so easily, but he knew the consequences of losing control.

It would be easy enough to do as Avy wished without touching her. Not so easy, though, to lie, not so easy knowing that he'd liked this fierce dolphin, who had Ryar's love of water and an iron will that was all her own.

But he had no choice. He could not refuse Avy: he could not refuse the lure of freedom.

After all, he knew how it ended otherwise: like Aurora, nothing left of her but a headstone.

_So shame on me for the ruse;  
Shame on me for the blues:  
Another one returned that I'll never use._

X - X - X - X - X


	6. Chapter Six

Well, it's an update and it's on-time :) My huge thanks go out to the angels disguised as people who were kind enough to comment on the last part: thanks to **Shards-of-Ice, perfectly weird, leian, yukatalamia, Sh33rs, Bex Drake, Miss Mary Lou **and last bt y no means least, the fantastic **girltype**. You are _fabulous_, and deserve much worship and tribute.

I owe a large debt to the kind Persephone, who beta'd the first part of this for me. Any flaws in the remainder are solely my fault.

Lyrics are courtesy of Sarah McLachlan's _World On Fire _(Album:Afterglow).

Comments would be utterly adored, as would criticism. I hope you enjoy reading!

**Ripples Part Six**

_The world's on fire; it's more then I can handle  
I'll tap into the water, try and bring my share_

By the time Phi arrived at the barbecue the next afternoon, bursting to tell her friends her strange news, there was an ominous coil of smoke drifting up to the sky that said someone had let Finn at the coals. As she swung the garden gate open, her suspicions were confirmed by the sight of Mr Farrier wearing an apron and a blackened chef's hat that was only slightly less charred than the spatula he was waving at his son.

"Finlay!" he roared, quivering like an angry hedgehog, "How many times do I have to tell you? You. Do. Not. Go. Near. Fire!"

The barbecue appeared to have collapsed, and the coals on the lawn caught fire just as Mr Farrier flung the chef's hat onto the ground – and straight onto the magically enhanced flames.

There was a soft 'whumph' and everyone hit the floor with tried and tested reflexes as the coals exploded.

"I was just trying to help," said a feeble voice from the ground.

Phi got up, and saw her friends similarly dusting themselves off. All of them had grimy faces, but with the habit of long experience, Celia plucked some wet wipes out from her bag and handed them round.

"Don't," advised Jo, scrubbing at her cheeks. "Darling, your little – problem with fire has been around for the last six years. What made you think it was going to go away today?"

Finn scowled through the layer of soot on his face. "Mum thinks I'll grow out of it."

"Oh dear..." Mrs Farrier, who had the same outlandish red hair as her son, came out from the house with a tray of food and stopped short. One corner of her mouth twitched but she flattened her expression as Finn's father got up. "Albert, didn't I tell you not to let Finlay near the barbecue?"

His father gaped, and flung the spatula to the ground. "This is not my fault! I told that little ragamuffin to keep his flammable fingers away from my..." He looked like he was about to cry. "My beautiful new Firemaster 1000."

"You'd better get the spare out of the toolshed-no, not you, Finlay!" his mother ordered. As Mr Farrier stomped off to the shed, she broke into a wide grin and gestured to them all to sit at the rickety picnic table. "Well, you managed not to destroy last year's barbecue," she sighed, patting her son absently. "I suppose you were due one. Keeps your father on his toes."

"Sorry," muttered Finn, once more eyebrow-free but unlikely to stay contrite for long.

"I'd heard of witches who had too much power to control it," was Riose's muffled comment as he dusted soot from his hair. "I didn't believe it till I met you."

Finn shrugged. "It's only fire. I'm fine with everything else."

"You're useless with everything else!" shouted his father as he hefted the back-up barbecue across the frizzy lawn. "Just my luck! The one decent talent we've got in the family, and the scoundrel's got so much of it he can't even light a candle without turning it into a national emergency!"

The witch's face fell, and just to cheer him up, Phi gave him a kiss on the cheek. He brightened, then gave her a sly glance and put on an even more depressed look, bottom lip sticking out as he sniffled loudly.

"I can't believe you didn't stop him, Ri," said Celia.

The lamia looked startled. "Don't you remember what happened last time I surprised Finn?"

The girls exchanged glances. "Yes," they chorused. Riose's clothes had been crisped off his body after what had quite literally become a heated argument. "Encore," added Jo with a wink.

Riose turned an unfazed face her way. "So, Phi, how did it go after you left us?"

"Coward," muttered Jo very softly, but Phi found herself the focus of four intense stares and unable to decide who was discomfiting her most.

She took a deep breath, let it out, and then the words gushed forth, low and fast. "I think I've met my soulmate."

The reactions were swift: Finn choked on a piece of tomato, and Celia managed to pound him on the back and gawk at the same time. Jo's surprise was quickly overridden by a wicked, querying smile, while Riose only stared, eyebrows raised and eyes childishly wide.

Riose was first to probe. "What do you mean 'think'?"

"Good point," Jo agreed in a moment of rare concord. She pointed a breadstick at Phi. "From what I've heard, it's all mystical wonder combined with insatiable lust and fluffy pink clouds. Or silvery cords."

"It didn't feel like that at all," she said, mulling over that brief – too brief – contact. "It was more like..."

The heat had broken over her as suddenly as an African morning, and his mind had been an extension of that, a rough and sandy place where his thoughts shivered like mirages, yet she had barely coasted the edges of it.

"Being burnt alive," she said without thinking.

There was a dead silence, before Finn lifted his glass and murmured, "To romance! May we all have the Christian martyr experience with our Wun Twoo Luff."

"Want to try again, Phi?" suggested Riose, with a little sparkle in his eyes.

This wasn't going quite as she had planned. "Let's," she said weakly, and proceeded to explain it all, even the embarrassing parts, her face growing more and more flushed as the story went on. All of them were markedly silent, even Finn, who usually would have wolf-whistled and pouted in appropriate places.

"Okay," the redheaded witch said, no longer slouching over the table. "So...we have a Peeping Tom who tries to set you on fire, and because you dreamed of him, you think he's your soulmate? Some random-"

Mistakenly, she attempted to interrupt. "That's not it-"

"No, Phi, just no!" snapped Finn, a flush to match hers creeping up his neck. "He is not your soulmate, he's obviously a maniac and if you're dreaming of him isn't it rather clear that it's a warning?" His voice was a deadly whisper, and his eyes were...

Oh no. Finn's eyes were crackling with witch power, with the dark blue heart of a flame, and in synchronised haste, all of them leapt from the table. When they said Finn had a fiery temper, it was no joke; after Riose's _al fresco _nudity, anyone intending to confront him had learned to do it over the phone.

"Distract him," muttered Phi from the corner of her mouth. "If his hair goes, we're in trouble."

_What do you mean if his hair goes? Where's it going_? demanded Jo silently. The wildcat had put the picnic table between herself and Finn. _I've never seen him this riled._

_Lucky you_, muttered Phi, who had helped Celia to give Finn a makeover while he was asleep in a moment of girly abandon. When he woke up to find he was covered in sparkly green eyeshadow and cherry lipstick, he'd been...less than pleased.

She edged towards the bucket of water next to the barbecue.

"Oh no..." moaned a faint voice: Finn's father had taken his attention from the coals, and was looking distinctly panicky. He scurried off in the direction of the house, with a parting plea of: "Try not to blow up my begonias!"

"Finn, cool it," ordered Riose, hands out.

"I will not cool it!" hissed the witch, fists clenched. "Some disgusting pervert has been spying on MY best friend-"

With a sound like tissue paper crumpling, his hair caught fire.

Phi grabbed the bucket of water and threw it. The fire died with the sound of a giant gasping, and a cloud of smoke rose from Finn. Dripping, he glared through his hair.

"I'm still right," he said through gritted teeth, spirals of smoke drifting idly from his ears.

Mrs Farrier appeared from the house, looking faintly worried. As she saw her son, anxiety dissolved into exasperation. "Finlay! You know how I feel about you smoking."

The witch scuffed his feet. "Sorry. It was an accident."

Mrs Farrier turned her weary face to the rest of them. "Kids, please – Mr Farrier has a delicate disposition. Try not to upset him any more, I need him to put up some shelves later."

"Is he okay?" said Celia, ever polite.

Finn's mother rolled her eyes. "He's rocking in a corner muttering about the begonias. I'm sure he'll be fine after I offer to buy him a new Firemaster 1000. Can you lot at least pretend to be normal for a couple of hours? Then we can all have some dinner." Shaking her head, she swished inside.

"I didn't know you could catch fire," managed Riose, whose cool façade was looking distinctly ragged.

Finn smiled tightly. "I don't advertise the fact."

"Doesn't it hurt?" asked Jo, prowling closer to peer at Finn's bedraggled form. "You don't look singed, but..." She prodded him, and yelped as his hair sparked violently.

"Don't be so twitchy, and no, it won't hurt," he snapped. "It's not a hot flame – that takes more power than I've got. Like when you light alcohol."

"Don't be barbaric, darling!" They all knew Jo's horror of doing anything so wasteful as burning alcohol; the wildcat much preferred to drink it, especially her lurid and layered cocktails. "So if you're a firebug, could we all wind up as someone's main course if you get mad?"

Finn shook his head, now smoke-free. She was grateful to Jo for distracting him, but knew the lull was temporary. "No. I'm good at setting inanimate stuff on fire-"

"Ya think?" muttered Riose, undoubtedly remembering being left on the middle of the football field sans clothes and with only a, well, a handful of dignity.

Finn ignored him. "-but living things require a much larger amount of power. What I have is power that turns into fire – if I want to set someone on fire, I have to be able to flood them with magic, literally replace every drop of blood in their veins with it. It's impossible. Maybe a dragon could do it, but I couldn't even get close."

The wildcat tipped her head to one side, pursing her icy-pink lips. "So Phi's mystery man couldn't have hurt her, then?"

Finn's expression switched into a scowl at the mere mention. "Well...now you mention it...I don't know. All the heat spells I know warm the air and not the person – for the same reason I can't just snap my fingers and turn you into charcoal, a spell can't warm your body. I could have set your clothes on fire, but I couldn't have dried them."

"He wasn't a witch," Phi interrupted softly. "He felt old."

She sighed inwardly as Finn's eyes narrowed, as mordant as his voice. "Oh good. So he's not just a perverse pyromaniac, he's a geriatric perverse pyromaniac."

"Finn," said Celia, "Don't make me tell everyone about what really happened with Mandy Withers."

The witch mouthed wordlessly. As if the words were yanked from him, he muttered, "Fine. Your soulmate might turn out not to be a reject from the freak show. But if he is, I get to gloat, right?"

Phi was used to Finn's version of an apology "Yes, you can gloat. So...what is he, then? A vampire?"

Riose shook his head. "Nope. I've heard of a couple who could light candles, nothing bigger, and definitely no heat. And I don't think it's a shapeshifter skill."

Jo shrugged. "Not that I've ever heard. We're more talented in the hunting department. Looks like we're down to dragons, and they're nearly all dead or asleep."

"I didn't see any horns," she reminded them. "Isn't there anything else it could be?"

Celia raised her hand, a wry smile lighting her. "I have an idea, but Finn has to promise not to burst into flame."

He pulled a strand of hair through his fingers. "I'm too damp."

"Good. I think Phi should go back to the lake and ask him."

Finn gave her a disgusted look.

"Actually..." Riose gave the human a little approving nod. "That's not a bad idea."

"Does no one remember the bit where he tried to burn her alive?" asked Finn loudly. Phi had the feeling comments in this vein were going to go on for some time, and knowing Finn, possibly forever.

"And," added Jo, waggling a finger at her, "find out if he really is your soulmate this time. No more of this 'I think' business. And if he is..." Her wicked smile glittered with promise. "I hear there are some...bonuses from having a man who can read your every thought. Do let us know."

"Don't let me know," advised Riose. "I know none of you are the perfect angels I like to think you are, but let me pretend, okay?"

Phi hadn't needed an excuse to go back to the lake; in her heart, she knew she had been planning to return anyway. But somehow – it warmed her to have all her friends' approval.

"This idea sucks," announced Finn loudly.

Well. Almost all her friends.

X - X - X - X - X

Don took the cup with distaste contorting his mouth. Zeke didn't know if it was for him or for the vile-smelling brew Avy had demanded he prepare. She had opened her little bag and handed him the oldest and most withered of her horns.

_It is no use to me_, she told him. _But to Poseidon...yes, there is enough power left to make him a marvel among his own. You must powder it, and boil it in water. That will make enough for several weeks_.

Zeke had his doubts about handing even a scrap of dragon power to Don Ivan, but he wasn't the tyrant here, just the slave.

_What did you think of his little wife?_ she had asked unexpectedly. Her thoughts jabbed like starlings at his mind, trying to search out his secrets.

"Nothing special," he had lied, careful to keep his hands steady as he ground the horn with a mortar and pestle. The scent that rose from it was pungent, a mix of old blood and earth. "She doesn't like him."

_I wouldn't expect her to,_ she said tautly. _He has considerable charm, but there is something in his mind...something he did to her. But I don't need her to like him. I only need her to be helpless_.

Yes, he had thought in the deep and private cage of his thoughts. You always liked people to be helpless around you.

"She will be," he'd replied, and wondered why the words were sour in his throat. "She was – curious about me."

_Curiosity is not enough,_she snapped._ Make her care, Ezekiel, make her chase you – make her yours. Yours and ours._

Make her his? He had wondered why the thought sang through his blood. He didn't need to shut his eyes to see her, drenched in moonlight, a pale curving form.

"I will do my best," he answered, and could not conceal the yearning in his voice. Delphine Thetis lingered in his mind, an opalescent phantom who shimmied before him, water trailing down her body.

As he mixed the potion, he had wondered if she'd taste of the sea, if she'd be as soft as her smile.

Now, with Don Ivan before him, his contempt radiant in his eyes, he rather thought that if he handed Delphine Thetis to Don, she would taste the same, salt and warmth, but it would be tears he drank down, tears and rancour.

He rubbed his temples: she was just a girl, an ordinary girl, and he had to stop these ridiculous fantasies.

The dolphin drank it down and dropped the cup to the floor when he was done. It clattered at Zeke's feet, but he refused to stoop and pick it up.

"You dropped something," he informed the shapeshifter dryly.

The lagoon-blue eyes narrowed, and like the crackle of storm heat, Zeke felt the power building up in Don Ivan, spreading through his body. "Then you'd better do your job and clean it up, hadn't you?"

The anger flickered in the back of his head, but Zeke quashed it. "Your mother might clean up after you, but I won't. You're supposed to be an adult – why don't you try acting like one, and maybe the pretence will stick?"

He turned to Avy and gave her a little bow; yes, he knew exactly how to get his dear decrepit mistress on his side. "After all," he added, meeting her blind eyes with impunity, "a lady once told me that respect is a better currency than paper and metal."

_Clever, my pet,_ she said fondly, putting him back in his place with one endearment. _Spare me your clumsy manipulations – I agree that boy is outrageously arrogant. He does indeed need to learn respect_. Her voice hardened, sawing a rough line of pain along his skull. _But I will teach it, not you_.

Her attention turned to Don, and Zeke tried to concentrate on keeping his feet in a world that had blurred around the edges.

_That power is a gift, Poseidon. What I gave, I can take away and I won't hesitate to if I think you are doing anything to jeopardise my preparations. You came begging to me, not the other way around_.

Don Ivan had taken a step back, but it was anger and not fear that flared in his face. "You can't do anything to me."

_No_, she agreed, her voice strong with wicked amusement. _You did it to yourself. Power really is a drug, Poseidon...and powdered dragon horn is an incredibly addictive drug. The effects will wear off in, oh, around three days. I'd recommend you come here before the cramps start, or you may not make it back_. Her rattling laughter was a sad echo of the rich sound that had captivated men so long ago. _I would hate to lose such influential help_.

"You're lying," the dolphin said, showing what Zeke thought was remarkable stupidity for someone who'd sought out a murderess who harvested dragon horns. "You're just trying to scare me."

Avy wouldn't like that. She admired confidence, but loathed slow learners.

_Three days,_ she answered tautly_. Maybe then you will believe. Get out of my sight, child_. Contempt clanged on that last, and he knew that Avy would not be quick to end Don Ivan's misery when he came crawling back to her, begging for more.

With a swagger in his step that would not last, Don Ivan strolled out of her refuge and into the sultry evening.

X - X - X - X - X

When everyone else had ambled home, stuffed full of food and only slightly singed, Phi and Finn cleared up the mass of plates. She could tell from the stiffness in his movements that he was still angry. When the last of it was piled high in the kitchen, they escaped upstairs to the relative privacy of Finn's room.

She grimaced at the mess and stepped tidily over it to slump on the big beanbag he kept in the corner. "You're going to have to stop sulking at some point."

Finn settled onto his bed, flat on his stomach. "You stop doing crazy things, I'll stop sulking. Deal?"

"And what if I'm right? What if he is my soulmate?"

Puzzlement fluttered in his eyes.

"Do you think my parents would make me marry Don if they knew I'd found my soulmate?"

"Oh." The soft sound was left framed on his lips, but he shook his head. "And if they won't let you wriggle out of it 'cause you don't like that moron, do you think anything else will change their minds?"

Phi was trusting it would – her parents had broken their own engagements because of love; even now, the night that Daniel Thetis had raced through a snowstorm to claim Marie Laveau for his own was a famous pod legend. She didn't even know the stranger by the lake, let alone love him, but she hoped maybe she could convince him to play out the farce with her.

"It has to," she said tightly. "It's that or the Furies – which would you prefer?"

"Bloody Riose!" Finn gave her a venomous look. "I can't believe he put that stupid idea into your head. Phi, they're assassins. They don't help people, they kill them. They'll eat you up and spit you right out again."

"Don said much the same," she informed him.

That stopped him: his eyes widened. "Ugh. I agreed with the Podfather?"

Different logic had led them to the same answer, she suspected, but both were wrong. She would handle the Furies if she had to – because if her parents wouldn't agree, there was no other way. She had thought long and hard about Riose's words – _they'll ask a price_ – and knew she would pay it, whatever it was, to keep Don Ivan from her heart and body.

"You did," she confirmed. "Finn, I can't...I can't marry him. I have to find a way out of this."

A shiver rolled lazily up her back, followed by another and another, as if the tides were moving in her spine, until she was suddenly shaking.

"Phi...?" His voice was warm and alarmed, all the anger gone from it.

The memories had flashed against her eyelids before she could try and stop herself: the flashing scarlet of hungry eyes, the feel of stone scraping on her hands and the strange, twiggy sound as her arm broke-

"He s-scares me," she managed to stutter out, wanting to offer him some explanation, some way to alleviate the fright in his eyes.

Finn's arms were around her, just real enough to drag her out of that old nightmare. She leaned into him, grateful for his murmured reassurances, for his lack of questions. Riose would have pried, however gently, would have tried to think it through: that was why she went to him for advice. But Finn just held her, smoothing away the shivers.

"Want me to beat him like an egg?" was all he said.

"No, I want to do it," she muttered into his shoulder.

He snickered, and that exorcised the last of the tension from her. "Trust you." His tone changed subtly; a rueful note crept in. "And I just bet you aren't going to tell me what he did to freak you out."

She shifted, and he carefully moved her round so they were sitting side by side against his wall. It was strange how safe she always felt with Finn, even knowing how – well, how flammable he was. "You'd go nuclear."

"You can't tell me he doesn't deserve it," he said with a shrug. "I still think he keyed my mom's car. Bit too much of a coincidence, you know? I tell him pink not only makes him looks fat, but also brings out his conjunctivitis, suddenly there's a big eye scratched on the hood."

Privately, she too thought that kind of pettiness was exactly Don's trademark, but she wasn't going to give Finn an excuse for a vendetta. Don had the support of all the pod boys, and none of them liked outsiders, especially loud-mouthed witch outsiders who 'stole' their women.

"Still," he said eventually, "it's your secret. If you ever want to tell me, I'll be all ears. I'll even 'ooh' and 'aah' in the right places."

"I know," she murmured, but didn't add: yes, you'd listen, and then you'd try and hurt him, and if you were lucky, someone might intervene before the pod boys drowned you. And then you'd be tried under pod law, which favours us every time.

"And I still think running after your stalker is stealing all his fun." He gave her a faint grin. "See, that was civil."

"We'll have to agree to disagree then," she said wearily. She didn't want to have this conversation a thousand different ways, which was invariably what would happen if she let Finn get away with it. "Let's talk about something else, please."

His eyes rested on her face, and she didn't know what he saw, but it made him nod. If she'd had a mirror, she might have seen the strain that shadowed her eyes and made her skin too pale against the fiery fall of her hair, but as it was, she was just thankful he agreed.

"Well," he murmured thoughtfully. "I _could_ tell you about the expedition Kirsty and I took to the haunted house out on the Ghost Roads...but I think a story this good needs ice-cream to accompany it..."

X - X - X - X - X

Don Ivan lurched onto the fabled Ghost Roads, a manic grin stretched across his face. The tonic had slid into his blood stream with the familiar warmth of a friend's smile, sweeping out to his toes and fingertips.

_It will be like a part of your own power_, the hag had said. _You will be everything you already are – and more, as if you have become more potent. As if a god has leaned down to breath holy air into you, to make your every thought better and brighter._

What an understatement. What a phenomenal understatement.

He licked his lips, and that prickling pressure tap-danced on his mouth for minutes afterwards, the barest taste of his incredibly heightened senses. He thought that if he wanted, he could reach up and pluck the clouds from the sky to wind around the branches.

Like a drunk man, he staggered along the paths, the familiar made new and exciting by the draconic essence that lifted him high, high, higher.

Stupid woman, he thought, giving away power like this for almost nothing! And now that he had it at last, he didn't need that repellent bitch, hunched on her throne as if she still thought to rule.

That was his job. The merpeople would honour him as the greatest of them all, immortalise him in song and story – and he would lead them back to glory, back where they belonged.

No one would ridicule them as the jokers, the Samaritans, as insipid or weak or worst of all, nice. And once Daniel Thetis had stepped down, once Phi was the future would be secure. He would unroll the plan that had formed in his mind so many years ago, when he had seen that the merpeople were incomplete, like the ragged half of a broken heart.

And as he walked deeper onto the Ghost Roads, he came closer to their opposites, a people equally fragmented, as desperately in need of the merpeople's solidarity and closeness as the merpeople were in need of their strength and wildness.

When the pod and the Pack ran together at last, the moon herself would shiver at their passing.

_Try to bring more, more then I can handle  
Bring it to the table  
Bring what I am able_

X - X - X - X - X


	7. Chapter Seven

Thanks to you wonderful, fantabulous people who reviewed: **Anhnkitomi, leian, dream wind, Miss Mary Lou, yukatalamia, Bex Drake, Shards-of-Ice, LifeSucksWithoutRealVamps, CalliopeMused, jade amber **and the kick-ass **Kalista.** Thank you so much!

Comments are adored and pored over: please don't be shy about criticism, I enjoy hearing it.

Many thanks to Persephone, who beta'd this monster.

Lyrics come from the Rasmus' _In The Shadows_. I hope you enjoy reading!

**Ripples Part Seven**

_Sometimes...I feel that I should go and play with the thunder_

In the absolute stillness of the Ghost Roads, Don Ivan searched.

The dragon power was still searing through his veins, and the night was closing in. If he'd seen himself, he would have been shocked to see a faint gold luminescence hanging around his body, giving him the look of a ragtag angel.

Last time he'd come hunting wolves, it had been for sport with his cluster of brawling friends. The pod boys had spent their lives rolling from one fight to the next – there was always someone who thought them weak, kind, gullible, who thought they could steal their money and their girls. So many of those fights had been with the Pack.

But only once had been in the Ghost Roads, and there the pod boys had quickly learned that while they reigned supreme in watery realms, the Pack ruled the woodlands. Unable to tell the Pack's scent from the thick foliage, they had been ambushed and soundly beaten.

Now, though, he could scent them: a heavy, wild scent of wet fur and mud underfoot. It became unbearably strong - they were close - and he had to school his face into an appropriate mask of surprise as a woman's voice sliced at him from the shadows:

"Well, aren't you a fish out of water."

He had to admire how they had manoeuvred him deep into their territory – too far in to call for help or escape.

"Does that make you a bitch in the manger?" he retorted snidely, then remembered he wasn't here to pick a fight.

She moved out of the shadows, her skin bluish in the fading light and her eyes the eldritch green of someone who had spent too long on four legs. Dark hair cupped her face like loving fingers, the dramatic effect superseded by the fact that she was very definitely naked.

"If you'd like," she said, the purr along the words matched by a light roll of her hips.

He was amused; behind him, he could hear the patient pad of wolf feet. He might not have come to pick a fight, but the Pack had.

"That's not what I'd like."

She moved forward. "Are you sure?"

The stalking footsteps quickened, charging; around Don, time seemed to slow, becoming thick and liquid as treacle. There was the change in the air, pushing on his back, and the sound of a body in motion-

He stepped sideways, pivoting and reaching out his hands with what seemed like ridiculous ease to help throw the wolf past him. It slammed into a tree hard, barely missing the girl.

"Nice try," he said casually, dusting off his palms. His heart beat as evenly as before until he caught a whiff of their fear on the air, sharp and acid. It woke a savage joy in him, an urge to see them crawl and bleed that he thrust down. "Not exactly the height of subtlety though."

The wolf's form shivered into a broken heap of angry boy, glaring up at him. "How'd you do that?" he demanded.

Don gave them a slow smile, wasting a little charm on them. "Be nice and I might show you."

"What do you want?" That was the girl, her voice hard and practical. Every line of her body was tight now, poised on the balls of her feet.

He gave them both an even look. "An alliance."

The stark shock on their faces was everything he could have hoped for. And as the moon floated high into the sky, dolphin and wolves sat down together and spoke of power.

X - X - X - X - X

The dream settled on Phi like morning dew.

She breathed in salt air, and opened her eyes. The beach was gravelled and small and pitted with rockpools that trapped myriad moons in their reections which flickered like blinking eyes. Her feet curled tightly into the stones, trying to anchor herself against a tempest that was brewing in her heart, a storm that would sweep across them all.

War was coming: she knew it, and so did he.

He sat beside her with his hands set behind him, legs stretched so the wavelets just brushed his toes.

Beneath the thin glaze of the dream, Phi watched this strange scene with wonder. Who or what was the woman whose eyes she saw through?

"Zeke, I want you to leave," she said. "It's getting dangerous."

And as the boy turned his face to her, Phi felt a hot wave move through her. It was the boy from the lake.

Zeke: the name took meaning beyond mere sound. It was a boy beside a lake, with a mind full of mirages. It was eyes that were gleaming with an unnatural copper light. It was a quirky smile that faded as he looked at her, and the faint scent of candle smoke.

"It's always been dangerous for me. Nothing's going to change."

"Everything's going to change." The foreboding knotted her throat, and images flitted through her mind. Times that might be, prophecies she had made, each darker than the last. "You must tell Avy."

"I'll tell her, but she won't listen. She backs Kheo to the hilt. Shame the hilt isn't in his infernal back."

No. She had to save at least one of her family. If she could sway Avy, then maybe the others... "She loves you."

"She loves Fireblade," he corrected shortly, and pain twisted his mouth. "But I'm as close as she's going to get, so she pretends, and I pretend, and sometimes it's close enough to being true to make us believe."

Yes, we all do that, she wanted to say. Longing for the dream, we lie and lie and lie so that reality is less ugly. Avy longs for my husband, I long for his sovereign, and you – what do you long for?

"Even false love is a lever," she said in a low voice. "Please, Zeke, try to convince her. I've dreamed – I've seen such terrible things. I can't stop the war, but maybe I can stop my family from dying-"

She caught herself, but too late.

The coppery eyes were dull with shock. "It's certain then? But the diplomats..."

Her breath rasped in her throat, and every long night of recent times flooded into her thoughts. So many, oh, too many to count. The words tumbled out, and she couldn't stop them.

"I've seen a thousand things, Zeke, and I don't know which will come to pass. The future changes every instant. Three months ago, war was a possibility. Now it's almost certain. I don't know if what I see is a warning of what not to do, or a path I must take, or someone's wishful thinking. I see Fireblade fighting, Bhari and Hael arguing, Kheo throwing off his crown, my sisters dead and dying, my friends fighting with me and sometimes we fight the witches, sometimes we fight each other, and I don't know which is real!"

She wrenched her hands into her hair, tugging hard. If she pulled hard enough, maybe this horror would be plucked from her, thrown away to rot in the light of day as nightmares ought.

"I just can't tell!"

And then she felt warmth curling up her body. It chased away the nightmares with tropical heat, and she felt Zeke's hands on her forearms, steadying her, sending power through her.

"All you can do is what you think is right." His eyes were earnest, and she pitied him for his innocence. "War will come, we all know it. Kheo wants the witches gone. But Hael doesn't – he made them, he won't let them be destroyed so easily. You won't either. Without you, the Five are crippled. You have to hold on."

Aching with the promise of loss to come, she let him think his comfort had worked. "Talk to Avy."

"I will," he assured her. He got to his feet. "I have to go. I'm due to meet Fireblade, and if I'm late...you know how it goes."

More than anyone else, she knew. On his legs, the faint shadows of bruises for those who cared enough to see.

Without so much as a goodbye, he left, and she was momentarily hurt. Then she gasped as orange light danced on top of the waves, moving like the waters of heaven and sending thick curls of steam to carry the beloved scent of the ocean to her. Suddenly the gloom was gone, replaced by darting fires that moved like a shoal of strange fish under the surface.

She turned to thank him, but he was already out of sight. The lights were fading, but the image stayed with her for a long time: fire and water, making something of beauty.

X - X - X - X - X

The small neat building that lurked on the wild edges of the Ghost Roads had become known as a haunted house. Night-time rovers spoke of screeches and unearthly moans, while thrill-seekers skulked in the undergrowth hoping to catch a glimpse of a ghoul or boggle.

Iry Lupine, local werewolf, long-time cynic and the closest living creature to the ghostly cottage, had been asked what he'd heard. His blunt reply: "Two people havin' a damn good time."

His remarks were dismissed as characteristic scepticism, and the haunted house became just as infested with the breathing curious as the spectral dead. To a certain extent, both were right: the house was indeed inhabited, and the bleak aura of death that hung about it was no fiction, but the man who made himself a home in this nest of shadows was very much alive.

And right now, he was dangling upside down from a tree.

From the grainy depths of dirt on the ground, a mobile phone rang.

A pair of eyes squinted down. They were a bright, focused blue, like a splash of winter's lifeblood, and right now, glittering with mild displeasure. His expression showed the faintest trace of annoyance.

Blue Malefici, suspended from a rope snagged around his ankle, muttered something that would have made a child's eyes pop. He used a deft flick of power to flip the phone into his hand.

The caller's name flashed once, twice, as 'Don't Stop Me Now' jangled out onto the still forest air. Somehow, he wasn't surprised she was calling; after all, no one else would have the sheer gall to lay traps around his own house. In a way, it was charming and certainly inventive. Maybe he'd make his revenge less...cutting.

Blue snapped open his phone. Had the local people seen the famed Demon Fury at that moment, they might have doubted the truth of the horror stories.

"Morning."

"So it is." The woman's voice, low and slow, was carefully polite, forcing a distance between them that was mere illusion. "How are you?"

"Well hung," he said dryly. "As I expect you know. Ingenious snare. I particularly like the way you appear to have made a rope out of rock, though it does chafe."

"It's a useful spell. But I'm not calling to gloat." After a moment, she added, "Much."

The blood was beginning to thump in his head. "Get it over with."

She hung up.

The undergrowth rustled behind him, and he rotated awkwardly to see her step from the path, a smile tipping up the corners of the mouth that he had laid kisses on when they last parted. Bitter kisses, tracing the edges of her lips as a torment, just to see the pain form tired spiderwebs over her eyes and feel some strange, sweet pleasure ring in his heart.

They had that much right about the Grieving Fury; her soul stood in her eyes, bare to anyone with the skill or the sorrow to see it.

His witch took a good look at his plight, then whipped out a camera and took a picture of it for posterity. If it was anything like the last time he'd been caught out, Vaje Chusson would be wearing it on a T-shirt next week.

"Whatever it is," he began, slowly curling his body up to try and reach his ankle, "it must be important. After all, there are only two reasons you seek me out, and you don't look faint with lust."

Along the soulmate link, her emotions moved like jittery colts, shying from something that he didn't yet know. She was a deep, cool green on his senses, pine and oak leaves mingled into an enduring vitality, and as familiar to him as the weight of his skin on his bones.

"Hanging upside down might do it for bats, but not for me," she informed him.

"Pity," he remarked, and bent almost double, grabbed the rope and used it to haul himself upright, if still shackled. Now he could see the frown entrenched in her forehead. "Serious?"

"Aspen rang me last night. He wanted me to look up the breaking of blood-oath."

He fed a little power into the rope, seeking out a weakness. "Martin knows better than to swear silly oaths, with the exception of that ring he seems determined to leave on Tamara Slone's finger. And he knows blood-oath can be broken."

She craned her neck to watch him, and he found himself caught by the almost imperceptible push of her pulse in her throat, beating the same rhythm as his own heart. Even now, the small motions of her very life could fascinate him.

"He wanted to know how," she said, and there was a grim note on the last word. "I had the distinct impression he wants us to help someone."

"The Furies may be registered charities, but that's strictly for tax purposes," he said, finally finding a fracture in the rope. He twisted his own power into the gap, using it like a crowbar. "However, I might be prepared to make an exception."

The rope shattered into gravel, and he landed lightly on his feet, pebbles clattering about him.

She wathed him warily. "You'd...help?"

He shrugged. "Delphine Thetis is an extremely influential figure in the local pod, whether she knows it or not. Nightfire stands to gain more than it will lose."

Dumbstruck, she stood agape a moment, and he enjoyed the bemusement in her eyes. "How did you know-"

"The mer have tangled with us on a number of occasions. You'd be well advised to check your own archives for meetings with them. They're children of the Burning Times as surely as you are."

The mention of the ancient dragon wars made her eyes widen. "What has that got to do with anything?"

"Everything," he answered. "I take it you aren't prepared to grant her request – if she chooses to ask us."

"I need to hear her out." In business matters, she always reserved judgment unti she had all the facts. However much he despised her endless concern for the insignificant and unfortunate, he admired her professionalism. Reluctantly. "I've read the files. Last time we gave our...help, the results were disastrous."

"Last time we gave our help, idiots were in charge. I'll be interested to hear what Therese says."

His witch nodded. "She won't decide either until the request is made. Then she wants a meeting – us and Delphine. Her brother's snarled up in this."

Unsurprising. Riose Orage had had the makings of a fine assassin, with a precision and unflappable logic that allowed him to manipulate the nastiest situation to his ends. A considerable dash of the charm his sister lacked had greased his way.

And then...he had turned his back on it all, displaying a disturbing streak of sentimentality. Sometimes Blue wondered what had prompted Riose to leave, what could hold more thrill than dancing on the edge of danger, flirting with death like a lover, and cuckolding it with as little care.

Most of the time though, he just didn't care.

"Then we'll have to wait and see." He turned towards his house, digging out the keys. "Read up on the mer. Even I clawed my way through that load of paperwork."

"I intend to."

He threw a glance back at her, a hesitant dryad among the grove trees, his stormy days and Sunday blessings. "And never forgot where they came from."

She frowned: he left her to mull over those words. His mind was already playing out this delicate game with Delphine Thetis with the care of a chess player, moving, switching, endlessly considering how best to gain.

He knew the dark, despicable secrets of the mer. The question was...did Delphine?

X - X - X - X - X

The boy who had turned his back on the Furies walked into the local ice-cream parlour, scrubbing sleep from his eyes. Riose wasn't a morning person, but Celia's promise of a sundae breakfast had lured him from the comfort of his bed.

She was sat in a booth, already halfway into a chocolate-smothered confection and flicking through a magazine.

He paused, drinking in the focus in her face, the careless fall of her hair that she brushed back time after time. If sometimes Riose wondered why he was so drawn to her hedonism and passion, he put it down to his spartan childhood and the Furies.

They'd never understood why he'd left them for what they called 'human pretensions', and he'd never been able to explain. Looking at Celia now, he thought perhaps he could find the words.

She was so absorbed that she didn't notice he was there until he whipped the spoon from her hand and stole a mouthful of ice-cream.

"Hey!" She snatched back the spoon and gave him a whack on the knuckles. "I already ordered yours. It'll be over in a minute."

He slid into the seat opposite her. "How come I have to wait?"

"Because you bitched about how melted it was last time," she retorted, and wound some chocolate syrup wound the spoon. "Aspen rang. He wants me to come over tonight. You're invited."

"He's got an answer then," he murmured, more disturbed than he wanted to admit. "I thought he'd remembered wrong. I didn't think you could break an oath like that."

Celia shrugged. "If anyone was going to have the answer, they would."

That was certainly true. But he didn't trust their solution. "We'll see. Even if they do know how to do it, there's no guarantee they'll help Phi."

"There's no guarantee of anything in this life," she said in prim tones that were a perfect mimicry of her mother. "Death and taxes, Ri, and our psychotic friends are the worst of both worlds."

He saw his opportunity then. "Speaking of psychotics...what do you think about Phi's mystery man?"

Celia grinned. "Now, now, Ri, give the voyeur a chance. He sounded cute. I want one."

Cute. Sometimes, he didn't understand humans at all. "He could be anything, Cee. Finn's right to be worried."

She pointed the spoon at him. "Or he could be her soulmate."

"That doesn't make it any less dangerous. If anything, it makes him more of a threat." There was one thing he knew about the soulmate principle: it could be used to break as easily as to mend. "Having that kind of power over someone...who knows what he wants?"

She gave him a look, thankfully blotted out as a mound of ice-cream was placed in front of him. "Maybe he doesn't want anything," she suggested acidly. "Maybe you're being a pessimist, as per usual. For all we know, he's just one of the Pack who got curious about her. Or someone shy with a crush."

"Either way, I don't think she should go down to the lake on her own."

Her glare intensified, until he thought he felt his eyeballs boiling dry in their sockets. He'd never met another human who could make him squirm like Celia. The instant her stare moved from aggravated to what he privately classed as thermonuclear, he wanted to crawl under the table and cower.

"You've been talking to Finn, haven't you?" she snapped. "You can't tell her to stop going there. We both know it's about the only time she can go there without running into one of the pod."

"I wasn't going to tell her to stop," he offered meekly. "I was just going to follow her."

She snorted. "No."

"But-"

"No."

"The pervert-" he tried.

"No," she said, and her stare moved up to Ass-Kicking Alert. Riose gave up. Well, he gave up trying to get her approval.

"So, any good tips in there?" he enquired slyly, tapping the magazine with his spoon. He craned his neck, reading the tagline. "Oh dear – 'The Divine Feminine: Turn yourself into a Sex Goddess in Ten Easy Steps'?"

"Sssh, it's entertaining," murmured Celia around a mouthful of caramel delight.

Riose gave her an affectionate look. "Cee, hate to tell you, but you're already a sex goddess. Or hadn't you noticed Will Ratner drooling every time you lick ice-cream off yours fingers in that...provocative way?"

"It's not provocative!" she dissented with a wave of her hand. "I just don't want to waste good ice-cream."

Riose, who had always been thoroughly appreciative of the way Celia treated junk food like it really was an organic experience, held his tongue. And as he sat listening to this delightful human reading out the article in her best plummy tones, he thought of the shadowy life he'd once had, of all he had abandoned, and felt only the tiniest stab of regret.

X - X - X - X - X

Phi woke quite suddenly, blinking away the afterimage of light. That was her ceiling, and she swung her feet onto carpet and not gravel. Even so, she felt disoriented and vague.

Who was that woman? She knew which war it must be, even though it seemed impossible: the names had given it away. Bhari, Fireblade, Kheo – the architects of the Burning Times.

That was when Ryar had made the mer, hoping something would survive the wreckage.

But surely Zeke couldn't be that old – he just couldn't! That would make him...gods, nearly thirty thousand years old. That was insane.

You don't even know if it was true, she told herself. Troubled, she put the thought of him out of her mind and went down to breakfast.

Her father was sitting at the table, a newspaper in front of him and tired lines on his face. Around his cup of tea, his hands were rigid and his usual smile was missing.

"Morning sweetheart," he said in an odd flat voice. "I think we need to have a little chat when you've had breakfast."

Her stomach roiled, chasing away any appetite she'd had. He looked so serious. "Let's have it now."

"Your mother tells me you aren't happy with your marriage."

Your mother shouted at me, she translated mentally, and prepared herself for a tough conversation. "I'm not."

His face sagged, and he rubbed at his cheeks as if trying to scour away the expression. "I thought...you and Don...I thought you were..." He made strange twisting motions with his hands, not unlike an amateur magician, and when no rabbit materialised, she realised what disturbing fact he was trying to convey.

"Together?" she squeaked indignantly. "But...you know I hate him!"

He grimaced. "Your mother and I used to argue all the time too – we'd insult each other, play pranks, I'd pull her hair. It was our way of pretending there was nothing going on. She was engaged to Laurie, and I was good as promised to Michelle Thelasso, and...you and Don seemed the same. I thought maybe you didn't want us to know."

"You seriously thought I was sneaking off to, to, play at sweaty snugglebunnies with him?"

He spat out his tea, and she realised that she'd just suggested she had a sex life to her own father. Oh god. "I've never heard it put quite that way," he said faintly.

Silence reigned supreme, claiming a brief empire in the Thetis household.

"Sweaty snugglebunnies," he murmured, as if hypnotised by the phrase. An unruly blush rose in her cheeks. This was high on her list of conversations she had hoped never to have. "Sweetheart, you do have the most...disturbing turn of phrase. Though your mother used to call it-"

"No!" she squealed, clapping her hands over her ears. "Too much information!"

He chuckled, and it banished some of the tension from the air. "All right, all right." Sober again, his eyes were soft. "I am sorry, Phi. When your mother saw happiness, I thought it meant now, not in the distant future. But you know, I think you will come to love him. I don't see what else it could mean."

Any one of a thousand things, she thought. But it was time to unleash her last defence, and she hoped that her father of all people would understand. He too had broken with convention for the sake of love.

"What if there's someone else?" she asked tentatively.

His eyes widened. "Phi...?"

She swallowed hard. "What if I love someone else?"

They stared at one another, and she saw herself in his face, in the startled line of his mouth and the slope of his nose. "Do you?" he said finally.

Then the lie struck her. She knew he would never accept a chance meeting with a stranger, but someone she had known all her life...? Yes, that might wash. "Dad, it's Finn."

He put his head in his hands for a moment, and she thought all she would see would be disappointment. Instead, when he looked up, there was resignation and the faintest of ironic smiles. "I thought it might be," he sighed. "Him or that vampire you're so fond of."

Riose would never be able to keep up a pretence for long. Well, not the pretence of affection. He wasn't a tactile person, and she needed Finn's brand of flash and dazzle rather than Riose's subtler affection.

"If you're certain, I can hardly stand in your way," he continued, regret heavy in his voice. "I may be a gambler and a maverick, but I'm not a hypocrite."

"A maverick?" she repeated, baffled. "I've never heard anyone call you that."

"You wouldn't have." His eyes were sad, and for the first time, she saw a man who was a stranger to her – a man hard enough to have turned his back on pod tradition for nothing more than the flighty whim of love. "We agreed that we would try to keep you children free of what we'd done."

"What do you mean?"

He closed his eyes, and she thought with a cold shock that this was how his death mask might look: old and rugged, terribly sad. "Phi, if you really mean to do this, if you honestly cannot bear Don – if you are prepared to break blood-oath, I want you to know what it means. I want you to go and talk to two people for me. Today, if you can."

This was weird. There was a note in his voice she had never heard. "Okay...who?"

"Your godmother, and Iry Lupine."

Jessica Arryn, her bubbly godmother, was pushing ninety from the wrong side, and still pushed men into the lake to 'test their reflexes' as she put it, though everyone knew that what she meant was 'eye up the talent'. She'd seen her godmother only last week, and of course at the funeral, but she couldn't imagine why she was being sent to her.

Iry Lupine, the infamous lone wolf of the valley, was even more of a mystery. How did her father know him? The Pack and pod had been at loggerheads for years and Iry was the most cantankerous and paranoid of all the werewolves.

"Why them?" she asked. "What can they tell me that you can't?"

"In many ways, they remember it all better than I do," he answered vaguely.

"Remember what?"

"Go and see them," was all he said. "Then decide what you want to do."

Confused, she went to fetch the phone and retreated to her room to brood over what it might all mean.

It was time to tell Finn his dream had come true.

X - X - X - X - X

"WHAT?" screamed Finn down the phone. "Phi, are you kidding me?"

"No," she said meekly. "You're the only person he might believe."

She heard strange noises on the other end of the phone. It sounded like he was hitting something. Hard. At last, breathless, he came back on the line. "You're nuts. Your mother will go spare. She'll never bake me cookies again. My cookies...Phi, think of the sugar."

"He's not going to tell her," she answered, ignoring his typical melodrama. She was quite proud of her neat plan. "He wants to meet you and have a chat. Make sure you're serious."

"Serious?" he shouted, a crescendo arcing over the line. "Serious about murdering you! This is massive abuse of our unfortunately platonic friendship! Not to mention the fact that I have a date with Hannah Dresden on Friday and it's going to be very hard to explain that I'm pretending to be madly in love with you."

"It only needs to be long enough to persuade my dad," she coaxed. "And you're the only person I could trust. Think of how infuriated the pod boys will be! You'll be wonderful."

Silence. "Your shameless flattery may be working," he said reluctantly. "Tell me more."

She smiled. She'd known he'd cave in, if only because the opportunity to wind up the pod's possessive men was too good to pass up.

"Well," she said, "he wants me to go and visit some people first. But if you could just hold my hand, and kiss me on the cheek, and things like that."

"So...no ravishing you on the dining table, then?" he inquired innocently.

Typical Finn. "That's unhygienic."

"If that's your only objection, I'll bring a tablecloth."

"You're insufferable," she informed him, amusement enriching her voice. "But fantastic."

"All right," he said grudgingly. "I'm in. Just think – ten years, and all it took to hurl you into my open, adoring arms was Don Ivan proposing. If I'd known, I'd have gone to pick rings with him. We could have made it a girly day out. We'd have got coffee and compared notes, and I'd have painted his toenails, and plaited his hair, and-"

"Try not to say things like that around the pod," she interrupted dryly. "This won't work if you're dead."

"You ruin all my fun," he teased. "Ring me when you need me to play your loving boyfriend, okay? And if you still have to go running after your lakeside weirdo – be careful."

"I will," she promised, knowing it wasn't the answer he wanted, but one he'd have to be satisfied with.

X - X - X - X - X

Phi was a frequent visitor to Jessica Arryn's ramshackle bungalow, and had been ever since she was a child. Once, her unconventional godmother had looked after her when her parents were performing pod duties. Later, when her mother had first become bedridden, it was to take her away from a house that began to have the lank feel of sickness about it.

Not today.

She was ushered into the sitting room, the old dolphin shooing away her offer of help with a dry, "I'm not in my dotage yet, Delphine! Give me a few more years before you write me off as decrepit."

Like many of the mer, Jess's hair had turned a burnished silver long before any age began to show in her face and true to form, she had refused to accept maturity gracefully. Only her hands were truly old, liver-spotted and shaking a little as she brought Phi a cup of tea.

"So," her godmother said, leaning back in her favourite chair. "What brings you here, my darling? You don't usually call without warning."

She took a breath and let it out. "Dad sent me."

"Did he now. And why might that be?" A rueful smile hooking up her mouth said she might know the answer already.

_She remembers it better than I do,_ her father had said – what a bizarre comment. "He...he sent me to ask about him and mum. He wants you to tell me what it meant."

Mrs Arryn tapped a thoughtful finger on her mouth. "I thought he might. I told him you weren't going to accept Don Ivan, but he went ahead with it anyway. Daft, that. He's always been a slave to your mother's wishes."

It was a shock to hear her father denigrated so, and it made anger rise up loyally in her throat, words spring up hot as a geyser – and then a thought popped into her head, small and nasty: but he still wanted her to marry Don.

"What did he mean?" she asked quietly.

Her godmother sighed. "You have to understand, it began long before your mother and father were born. And it began with Aurora."

"Aurora?"

Jess reached for a picture that stood on the mantelpiece and handed it over.

It was a watercolour, drawn with a stark simplicity and bold colours that made it all the more vibrant. A portrait of a girl, with red hair and smoke-grey eyes that glanced coyly at the artist, half-smiling. Phi had seen it before and thought it a badly-done painting of herself.

"But she-"

"Yes, the similarities are...uncanny." Jess's voice was low, rough with emotion. "She would have been your great-aunt."

Startled, Phi looked her straight in the face and saw vulnerability there. "You knew her."

"She was one of my closest friends. Seeing you...for all of us who were there, it reminds us of her. We love you for many reasons, my darling, but I would be lying if I said you don't bring her to life again. I look at you, and I remember better times. Maybe I'm just getting old, and every piece of the past seems better, but I don't think so."

"What does this have to do with my parents?" she asked, baffled. If this Aurora was her great-aunt, she must have been around Jess's age – long before her parents were even born.

"Her death was the catalyst for change in the pod. Massive change. Bear with me, Phi. It takes some telling. Even when I tell myself, I sometimes wonder if it all happened."

Somehow, she had known Aurora was dead. The almost lost tone her godmother used had betrayed it.

"There are two things you should know about Aurora," Jess said slowly, her eyes staring through wispy layers of time. "The first – the least important - is that we adored her. She always seemed brighter and bolder than anyone else, or maybe that's just how I remember her."

She paused, and her mouth twisted. "And the second – she was the first child of the Pack and the pod."

Thunderstruck, Phi could only stare. "What? But the Pack hate us."

"Now they do, yes." A sad smile creased her mouth. "But then, it was different. We mixed together – we drank together, we ran together, we sang together. And eventually - inevitably, really – there was a marriage. No one expected any children, but then Aurora was born. And no one expected her to have to any power, but she turned out to have more power than any of us."

If it had been anyone else, Phi would have accused them of spinning stories. "Was she a wolf or mer?"

"Both. The witch who examined her said she could be one or the other – but after the first time she shapeshifted, she would be stuck with that form. It seemed something of Ryar did linger in us after all. As it happened, Aurora chose dolphin form, but it didn't really matter. She was just as much part of the Pack as she was pod. She was the best and worst of us all."

"What happened?" she asked, eager to hear, enthralled by the wonder and love in her godmother's voice.

The faded eyes filled with sadness, overlaying the nostalgia in a dreary film. "He happened. That was the summer that the boy came."

X - X - X - X - X

Things had been different then: she had been young, for one thing. Jess Arryn had been one of the riotous darlings of the pod, forever wreaking havoc with her three witch friends, and the other. The fourth: the one they pretended had never existed now.

Aurora had been a beautiful girl, with a careless laugh and endless mad ideas, and people gathered around her as if they could warm themselves on her. Snaky red hair made her exotic and her mouth was nearly always smiling, even if the words that came from it were dagger-sharp. Charm and tenacity and artfully applied cosmetics got her whatever she wanted.

And the summer that the boy came, the last Indian summer, Aurora decided that what she wanted was him.

He just appeared at the lake one day, a stranger with an aloofness to him that too many people mistook for timidity. His copper eyes were like nothing they had ever seen, and sometimes when she glanced at the shore, Jess thought that they shone like flames.

Things were simpler then – strangers weren't to be feared, just dragged into the boisterous banter of the shapeshifters. So every day, the pod would try and coax him into the lake, and the pack would invite him to run with them, and every day, the boy refused with a little smile. But he'd sit a little closer, and sometimes comment on their chatter, and gradually they broke through what they all thought to be shyness.

His name was Zeke, and he came from a distant place that he didn't like to talk about. He was a shapeshifter, but his power wasn't like anything they had ever felt: he was raw and crackling, deep umbers and burnt sienna. Sometimes, when she sat near him, Jess could feel heat radiating from him like a fever.

And he seemed to light a fever in Aurora. Here, at last, was a man she couldn't win. He would answer her politely, and chat to her with the same equable respect he gave everyone, but his eyes never lingered longer than was correct and almost everything about him remained locked tight inside his head and heart.

He was a challenge, like a butterfly caught in old amber waiting to be chiselled apart.

Determined now, Aurora redoubled her efforts. And gradually, bit by bit, as the sight of red-haired wolf and stranger became familiar, she pushed past his barriers. She unravelled his secrets – though what they were, no one but Aurora ever knew.

As the summer wore down, baking slowly into autumn, Aurora drifted away. She no longer ran with the Pack or came to the pod's evening meets.

Only two people tried to win her heart back: Iry Lupine and Jess met several times, trying to understand where their fiery wolf had gone, leaving this star-crossed loner in her place. They tempted her with meals, parties, engagements and weddings, evenings in and evenings out.

But neither of them had half the appeal of the boy with the fever-bright eyes.

The last time they saw her, she was cryptic, a fey vision of her old self. Her only colour was in those bright stripes on her cheeks and her feverish eyes, while the rest of her seemed bleached and shrunken.

She spoke of love and loss, of sacrifice and longing, of times gone and times to be. And she spoke too of one other thing – of wishes and ashes, as if there were no difference between the two.

They begged her to stay, but she refused. Iry caught her as she turned to leave, a fear in his eyes that would be mirrored on every face all too soon. He'd loved her, poor fool, and maybe if the boy hadn't come, Aurora would loved him too.

"You're burnin' up!" he'd gasped, dropping her arm as if it were cherry-red iron.

"Not yet," she said softly, "but soon."

The next day, Aurora was dead and the boy was gone.

X - X - X - X - X

"How did she die?" she said, morbid curiosity getting the better of her.

There was shininess to her godmother's eyes that Phi pretended she didn't see. "She did burn up in the end. It was the strangest thing I ever heard of. Her skin, her face – they were untouched, but the healer said that every vein and organ in her body was powder." Her voice was clipped and factual, chopping herself off from the past. "She only looked like she was asleep."

There was more, Phi sensed, but she didn't pry. "So the boy killed her?"

"Who else?" Jess answered bitterly.

"Did the Pack blame us?"

She shook her head. "Not for that. We were devastated, but all the blame lay with the boy. No, it was the funeral that divided us. Things were tense already. Alwyn Thetis, your great-grandfather, led us then, and he was as conservative as they come. My god, if he knew what your father was doing, he'd spin in that grave so fast you could hook him up to a generator and power half the town."

She'd always had the impression that her father didn't entirely approve of Alwyn.

"He'd never liked the Pack – and he was downright disapproving of Aurora's family. He thought that our power was weakening, that we were diluting the precious blood with outsiders. When she died, he took it as a sign and started to push for what he called 'community spirit'." She snorted. "Arranged marriages had always been a pod tradition, but really, when they felt like settling down, a couple would go and chat to their parents, who would nod and smile and look a bit faint at the thought of paying for a wedding. Alwyn wanted to breed us like cattle – marry the strongest together, regardless of our feelings, to try and keep the bloodlines pure. What a sanctimonious moron! Why, if I had a big enough stick and-"

"Aurora's funeral?" Phi prodded gently, used to her godmother's fly-by rants.

The angry flush dimmed in the old dolphin's cheeks. "Because she took dolphin form, we asked the Pack if we could bury her as we bury the pod. Well, they wanted to honour her as one of their own, so we reached a compromise. We'd build her a pyre, but the Pack would bury the ashes in their hunting grounds. They agreed, and when the day came, nearly all of us were there, Pack and pod.

"But...you know, sometimes I think there was sorcery in the air that day. Rain poured down, on and on, and no matter how long we waited, we couldn't light the pyre." A faint frown drew lines on her forehead. "Eventually, we had to give up. We put a tarpaulin over the pyre and left some of the boys to stand vigil. And when the morning came, the boys were asleep and her body was gone. Vanished."

"Someone stole it?" she said, disbelieving.

Jess shrugged, her voice heavy with those old grudges. "Looks like it, my darling. The Pack were furious – some hotheads thought we'd carried out the ceremony once they'd left and scattered the ashes in the lake. There were harsh words on both sides, old vendettas and silly accusations, and it was just the leverage Alwyn needed. Aurora's parents left before they were forced out, and that was the end of our great union. We split, we broke and among all the shouting and the anger, fear arrived. We became afraid."

She paused, and added softly, "And we have remained afraid. We breed you as if you're prize dogs and frighten our children with tales of the wolves in the woods. All of us have become too old and too proud to admit that we're wrong. The pod and the Pack are family – Aurora was proof of that."

Phi let out a breath, unaware that she had been holding it. Obsession and fear and divisions, all the same things that seemed to be occurring again. And the link between it all: Zeke, the boy with fire in his eyes.

She felt cold when she remembered how close she might have come – she might have shared her great-aunt's fate if...if...if he had not run away. Why had he run? Had he been terrified by the ghost of Aurora, fluttering in her features?

Yet this wasn't an answer. A piece of an answer, but no more than that.

"But – what does this have to do with my parents?" she asked again, urgency under the words now.

Jess blinked, as if drifting away from a dream. "I...that's Iry's part of the story," she said finally. "I suppose in a way, he was the arbitrator of that tragedy."

"It wasn't a tragedy," she protested, but quietly.

Her godmother cocked a silvery eyebrow. "Wasn't it?"

It was hard to meet those old, knowing eyes and see the truth reflected there. The cracks had been there already as the pod retreated further and further from the world, but it seemed that her parents had helped to put the last shining nails in the coffin she lay trapped within: living, but as one dead.

_Somehow, I just don't want to stay and wait for a wonder_

X - X - X - X - X_  
_


	8. Chapter Eight

Enormous thanks go to the wonderful people who were gloriously kind enough to review last time round - thank you **Amstar, Bex Drake, Calliope Mused, Cianna Greenwood, Enigmatic Piscean, Ice-coldx77, Laura, Leian, Mental Twitch 'Sh33rs', Shards-of-Ice, Tracing-tt,** and last but never least, the lovely** Yukatalamia: **you are wonderful and have my absolute adoration.

Comments would be cheered and revered:I love hearing what you think, and criticism is always welcome.

Opening lyrics courtesy of The Church and the spellbinding _Under The Milky Way_. I hope you enjoy reading.

Ki

**Ripples Part Eight**

_Wish I knew what you were looking for  
Might have known what you would find._

This time, when Celia stepped into Aspen Martin's house, the atmosphere was tight and watchful.

When he saw Riose at her shoulder, Aspen's eyes widened fractionally. "Riose Orage? You've grown up."

"I've been told that's the right direction," was Ri's short reply.

A faint grin touched Aspen's lips. "I dunno. Vaje seems to be going for 'out', these days."

"Hey!" shouted the coyote shapeshifter from inside. "Liking your food's no crime, Martin."

Celia turned to share a dry smile with Riose, and nearly stopped in her tracks.

His face was a blank mask, lifeless as a sculpture: even his eyes were flat and imperturbable . It was as if the spark that lit him had been snuffed out, with only the hitch of his chest to tell her he still breathed. Disturbed, she reached back to brush his fingers with her own.

Even that light touch made him start, but at least his eyes softened.

"Relax," she whispered.

"I can't," he replied in a disconcertingly normal voice. "And don't bothering whispering – we've all got preternatural hearing here."

Vaje stuck a red-smeared face round the door, the smell of pasta wafting out. "Yeah, but some of us are polite enough to pretend we haven't." He gave Riose the same look Aspen had: a brief flick of the eyes that looked like nothing but seemed to see everything. "Been a while."

"Not long enough," Riose muttered. He trailed into the living room after her, sitting himself next to her in a way she could only describe as territorial, one arm stretched along the back of the chair behind her head, bristling like an indignant cat.

"Dinner first, or business?" Aspen asked, coming in with a bottle of red wine – or what she hoped was wine. "And Celia had better be the second, Riose."

Only reflex made her grab Riose's T-shirt as he bounded to his feet. People had made that remark before, and he'd shrugged it off, but now...

"Let go, Cee," her friend ordered, even though he could easily have torn free.

"No," she snapped. "You should know better by now, Ri. People always think the worst. And Aspen, that's out of order. I've known Ri a damn sight longer than I've known you, and excuse me, but I've seen the marks you leave on Tam's neck, so don't, just _don't_ lecture me."

For a long moment, Aspen watched her, his ever-changing eyes slipping from colour to colour like a sunset on speed. Then he nodded. "Yeah. Okay. You're old enough to make your own decisions."

Riose sat back down, a grim set to his face. "She's my friend, Martin. I'd never touch her."

The cork popped out of the wine bottle. "Sometimes...you know, you get involved with the Furies for too long, and you forget that not everyone thinks the same way." Aspen cracked a rueful smile, and she hoped Riose saw it for the apology it was. "Some days I still get up and all I can do is put a price on everyone I see."

That frank confession made something squirm in her stomach like a viper.

"I know," was Riose's reply. "I used to be the same."

Used to...? "Tell me you didn't work for the Furies as well," she said in disbelief.

"He never got in as deep as we did," Vaje said, stood in the kitchen doorway. "Ri had family who cared. Makes all the difference, Cee."

She put her fingers to her temples, counting silently. Another to add to the tally. She'd known Riose since she was five, five for god's sake! What kind of childhood had that been, what might he have become if his family hadn't...

No. She didn't want to consider it. Reality was already nasty enough, never mind adding in a hundred ugly what-ifs.

"Okay then," she said. "What did you find out, Aspen?"

He handed her a glass of wine, but she suspected it was so he could look directly into her face. "There were two cases in the archives. Bad news first: neither ended pleasantly. Good news: the same loophole those two exploited applies to Phi as well."

"What loophole?" Riose, already delving into the problem.

"Okay. A bit of history first for Cee, as she doesn't know. Most people only know the Furies as assassins. But we're...I mean, they're much more." Aspen's voice took on the careful cadence of rote learning. "Research and record-keeping are just as important, and we also have a number of spells which are...unknown...outside the Furies."

"And they've been damn troublesome at times," muttered Vaje.

Aspen gave a little shrug. "When it comes to blood-oath, there are two ways out: one of the parties involved must die, or it must no longer be possible to hold them to the terms of the original agreement."

"What do you mean?" she said cautiously. There had been a strange note in Aspen's voice, a hesitancy she didn't like.

He licked his lips. Beside her, Riose was still and attentive.

"The first case is easier to explain. It was a similar situation to Phi's. In Europe, the wolves have a royal line, an old dynasty. Their heir was to wed a member of the werewolf aristocracy in Russia. He loathed the girl – there was some human in a nearby village he'd fallen for instead, but as there was a lot of tension between Russia and Europe, the marriage had been pledged through a blood-oath."

Aspen took a deep breath. "He came to the Furies asking for help. This was way before my time, and a little before Vaje was recruited. Pursang studied the agreement he'd made and found one small flaw: the marriage was contracted between two werewolves. If he wasn't a werewolf, the agreement was null and void."

"Hang on," objected Riose, "You can't just...not be a werewolf. It's not like changing circles if you're a witch."

Aspen grimaced. "Yeah, and don't we know it. The Furies had a very old and dangerous spell in their archives that allowed them to steal a dragon's power – moving it from the body of a sleeping dragon into anyone else. Pursang adapted the spell to take the werewolf's essence – to take what made him a shapeshifter, only this time, they wouldn't shift his power into anyone else. It would just dissipate into nothing. The werewolf would be left human, so he'd be free to marry his girl and free from any retribution."

His voice slipped back into normal tones, softer and less focused. "It worked exactly as it was meant to, except for one thing. It started a civil war between the European wolves and the Russian wolves. It turned out that they didn't care whether the marriage was between wolf-and-wolf or wolf-and-human. They'd been after the political power, trade agreements, tracts of land, that kind of thing. They were livid. There's still tension, even a hundred years on."

"What happened to the wolf?" she asked, curious.

"Killed himself," said Aspen quietly. "He didn't understand what it meant to be human – he couldn't live without the wolf in his heart. Love wasn't enough to hold him together."

"Sometimes it isn't," murmured Vaje roughly, but when she looked at him, his eyes were distant, touched with tragedy.

"But it can be done," she persisted. "If they had to, the Furies would make Phi...like me. The mer couldn't hold her to the marriage."

It would be an act of desperation, but unless Phi's parents relented, was there any other way for her friend? It would be alast resort, a terrible one, but still – it was there.

"It's not that simple." Aspen took a slug of wine, looking uncomfortable. "The second time it happened, the results were even worse. There was a massive war. After that, the Furies decided that next time they interfered, they'd need a unanimous agreement – Nightfire, Pursang and K'Shaia. If Phi decides there's no other way out, she'll have to persuade all three of them."

"Do you think that's possible?" was Riose's cool inquiry.

The vampire looked at Vaje helplessly.

With a sigh not unlike a father rescuing an errant child from a tricky predicament, Vaje took over. "Pursang...I'd say yes. I can't imagine why she'd refuse. K'Shaia – well, Therese can be stubborn-"

"Tell me about it," muttered Riose.

"-but if Phi's ballsy enough, she'll win her over. Therese likes guts."

"With ketchup," Aspen put in brightly.

Vaje gave him a slow stare. "Martin, you must stop saying things like that."

She definitely hadn't wanted to know that. Even for one of Aspen's disturbing asides, that was...frightening.

"It's Nightfire that's going to be difficult," continued Vaje.

"The Demon Fury?" she asked in a tone little above a whisper.

"He's a contrary son-of-a-bitch," Vaje muttered, eyes narrowed in intense dislike. "He'd turn her down just to watch her fall apart, piece by piece. He might pretend to help and then tell the mer everything that's going on. And god help us all if he finds her interesting."

She didn't want to ask, but knew she had to.

"Last thing he found interesting," Vaje answered in response to her inquisitive look, "we were cleaning it off the walls for a week."

"It stank," mumbled Aspen, dread leeching his expression to a ghostly pallor.

Riose cleared his throat. "And so did the deal you made with Cee. What price did the Furies ask for this favour, Aspen? Her life? Her freedom? Or just her sanity? It's usually one of them."

The lamia lifted his eyes slowly, irises clashing in crocus-yellow and purple. "It was Pursang I went to. And I...negotiated."

She felt Riose's fingers brush her neck lightly, and his voice popped into her mind, full of incredulity. _That means he offered to pay part of the price himself, Cee. I never thought he'd do that...maybe he has changed._

Aspen looked at them. "It was the best I could do, Cee. Pursang will collect a favour from you, to be paid at a later date, when all this is over. She promised no physical or mental harm would come to you."

Once, that would have sounded safe. Now, it made her wonder what kind of harm would come to her.

X - X - X - X - X

Don Ivan stepped onto the Ghost Roads without caution. The evening shadows didn't seem to quite reach him, shying from this golden boy.

He had spent most of the night convincing the Pack that he wanted to ally their strength to his – that he alone of the mer would give them the power they had craved so long, the acceptance they pretended not to want.

He was met on the edge of the Pack territory by Susie, the leggy girl who had acted as bait for him. She gave him a small nod, her eyes mistrustful.

"We have to get moving," she announced by way of greeting, gesturing him into the woods. "I got 'em all gathered, but they're getting fidgety."

She was the closest thing they had to a leader: their last one had walked away from them a year ago, leaving the wolves floundering for unity. Under Alex Morelli, they had become a guerrilla force, guarding their land jealously. Without him, they were just the tatters of a militia, cruel and impulsive.

And while it made him grind his teeth that he'd have to pander to their egos, cuddle and coax them, it was only possible because they were so disorganised.

"Lead on," he murmured.

Her bitter laugh rose above the rustling leaves, and she cast him a dark glance even as she moved to obey. "Isn't that going to be your job?"

You don't know the half of it, he thought, casting a cool eye over her slender form. I'll lead you, and you'll love me, my dear, and I will remake us as we should have been: wolf and mer, beautiful and terrible.

When he reached the clearing, they were there: forty or fifty people, most of them young, huddled together as if a chill had seized them. Too many had those eerie green eyes and a feral slackness in their faces – only a few regarded him with any real interest. Those were the ones who would be his most loyal supporters, but first they would be trouble. Wolves always were.

There was an awkward silence until Susie stepped forward.

"Well, this is where it starts," she announced with a defiant nod. "You all know Don Ivan – he's the pod's heir, and he has an offer for us."

One of the few who stood apart from the group spoke up, his face bored. "Better make sure no one's followed him. There's a lot of nosy people round here. And we all know the little fishies like company." Narrow eyes were full of familiar contempt. "Don't want anyone unexpected joining this fucking soiree."

It made sense, but the wolf's insolence rankled. "If you find anyone, just turn them away. Nothing more than bruises."

Susie snorted. "And I suppose we handle your little wife with kid gloves."

Good news was always out-sprinted by bad news, wasn't it? Just the thought of Phi, stubborn, foolish, infurating Phi, made him want to push her head under the water and hold it there until that vicious mouth was silent forever.

God, it was such a shame he needed her.

"If you come across my little wife," he snapped, "you can push her in a pit of spikes for all I care, as long as she's capable of saying 'I do'."

The werewolf's smile was amused. "Well, you heard the man." She called several names and the werewolves stood. "No one comes near here, especially the pod."

"Now..." That was the man again, his teeth bared in an insolent smile that matched the scorn in his eyes. "Let's get down to business. Either you start saying something interesting, Ivan, or we'll have you for breakfast. I've always like sushi."

This one was definitely trouble. Don stared back at him, and inspiration came as an icy tingle in his skull.

He reached out with his drug-enhanced power and twisted the air like _this_, and looped it like _that_, glorying in how easy it was. He'd barely have been able to before, but now-

The man gagged as the invisible noose tightened about his neck. Air whistled between his lips. The cord stretched from him to Don's hand, and he gave it a little tug. The Pack should all be able to sense what he'd done, but they'd never be able to imitate it.

"I've always liked obedience," he said coldly. "Why don't you sit? I won't make you beg – for now."

The man clawed at his throat, eyes white and horrified. With hardly a thought, Don found himself tightening that leash, feeling a deep warmth at the panicked gasps of the man. How easy, how delightful to just pull it a little more and more-

The knowledge of his own death was written in the man's face, in his bulging eyes and straining jaw. A soft sunset colour was spreading over his face, and Don felt that he was watching the mysteries of the world unfold before him, lovely and dark and so, so rich in power – and his. All his...

"He's sat!" The harsh voice was Susie, clutching his arm. "We get your point, Ivan. He'll choke if you don't stop."

Choke-

Don blinked, and the sleepy spell lifted from him. With a brisk gesture, he loosened the leash, and the man spluttered and coughed, bracing himself on shaking arms.

Now the silence was fearful. He looked across the faces, noting those who were disgusted, those who were impressed – and those who were neither.

"I think it's time to clarify the terms of this alliance," he said.

X - X - X - X - X

Avy lives in the past because she cannot bear her present. Clutching at her ghosts, she tries to hold them close, only to find they evaporate in her arms.

And as the years have pattered by, she has found her memories whittled down to a hard core. Fireblade, who spurned her; Zeke, who did not, and her sister, the youngest of all the sirens, Ryar.

Ryar: her eyes always tear-drenched and afraid, prey among a host of predators. Only luck had kept her from an early grave. If she hadn't been a child of Sangager, if her voice had not had the wicked thrill of blasphemy in a cathedral, if Fireblade hadn't taken her into the shackles of his arms to wed and to incarcerate, if, if...

Luck had drawn people to her. Even the courtiers found solace in her winding songs. And the commoners, well...

The commoners had loved her.

It was that love which drew people to Ryar when she betrayed the Five, just as they were repulsed by the spite and arrogance of Fireblade and Kheo.

A war begun for love: it was not the first and it would not be the last. And like all wars, it ended in hate.

Try as she might, Avy can never forget the expression on her brother's face when he hewed the horns from her head, calling it mercy, crying as he stole her very being from her. Her brother, her keeper, caging her in this useless form.

He had asked for her surrender, trembling as he did so, and she had been convinced he would give in. Instead, when she refused, he had asked again – and again – and thinking she sensed weakness, she continued to refuse. Ryar's warnings had echoed dimly in her mind, but she ignored them, her belief in herself stronger than her belief in her wretched, weeping sister.

In the last days of the war, she searched for Ryar, hoping that her sister's phenomenal healing talents could mend even that most grievous of wounds. But all she found was Fireblade.

She was used to seeing him as invincible, a fearsome sight in battle, the sword he was named for swinging a burning path through his opponents. In court he was a silent, glowering presence, as prone to hilarity as to violent temper.

But when she stumbled over him, he was sat beside a lake as if he meant to hold a vigil over it forever.

"Fireblade?" she had said, disbelieving.

He had turned his head slowly, as if dragging himself from a potent dream. "Little Avy. You lived."

Brushing aside her hair, she showed him her horns. "Barely."

Some small horror twitched on his face. "You as well," he breathed. "How many...?"

"Countless," she said bitterly. "Ulryat could not bear the shame. She...she leapt from a tower."

He turned back, his voice flat. "She was ever proud."

Not anymore, she wanted to say, but her mind was filled with the broken form of her sister, with the long black hair that trickled across the ground, sticky with blood.

"I thought none of the Five had survived," she remarked, trying to guide the conversation.

He shuddered, but did not take his eyes from the water. "I alone."

"Ryar...?"

His laughter cracked the air, an ugly serrated sound that made her take a step back. "I suppose you wanted to use her again, Avarice, like you always did." He whipped around then. "Do you really think she would hand you back a way to harm her, do you think she would put a knife at her breast for you to thrust in?"

It was frenzied grief twisting his face so, grief and guilt that had put these rough wounds in him, though she could not comprehend the strange look in his eyes.

"For me...no. But for you – I think she would have done anything for you, Fireblade," she said slowly, now stepping back. "And she did, didn't she? You called her traitor, but it was you who betrayed her with a dozen women, you who pushed her further and further from us, you who filled her eyes with a monster!"

He threw back his head and howled, a long dirge that dragged like nails across her soul. She shivered through it, but did not run. There was no point; if he meant to harm her, he could do it easily.

"We are all monsters," he said bitterly, staring at his hands. "She always knew it. I think...I think she wanted to die, Avy. She wanted me to kill her. She couldn't live with the pain. And I did."

Her heart fell. He, who had protected Ryar so long, had snatched the wonder of her music from the world, leaving it bleak and still.

"I loved her," he confessed in a cold, wretched voice, and the words shocked her. "I saw the moment when the life left her, Avy, and as it slipped away, I knew, and it was too late! I loved her, and I...I..."

He put his head in his hands, and in the heavy slant of his back, she saw something new: the submissiveness of the worshipper, and the strange expression on his face became clear. This love, his first, his last, barely realised and never proven, had already become his obsession.

She looked over at the lake. Water, Ryar's element, washing clean and carrying free. She was beneath there, that was why he watched it as if the world bobbed on its currents.

Her sister's body – her sister's horns, her sister's bones, still full of that magnificent healing power. If-

"Leave here," he ordered, his voice low and vicious. "Leave here and leave her. She is mine now, she was always mine." A low snarl trickled from his lips. "I will guard her from thieves and vultures, Avarice, and I know exactly what you are. Go, and never come back."

She went...but she could be patient. She could wait. Fireblade's grief was a transitory thing, she was certain. Eventually, she would return. She would have her sister's power, and be whole once more.

And now, after the years of endurance, the wait is ended.

X - X - X - X - X

Iry Lupine, lone wolf and lone gunman, lived on the very edges of the Ghost Roads. Strictly speaking, it was Pack territory, but his reputation was ferocious enough to keep anyone from trying to evict him.

Phi began the long walk out to his home with trepidation in her heart. What would Iry Lupine add to the story? It must be to do with breaking blood-oath, but she couldn't see how a lone wolf had brought her parents together or why Jess had called it such a tragedy.

Before her mother had been bedridden, they'd been a happy house. There had been parties and barbecues, and she remembered her father clumsily whirling her mother about the house one Christmas, drunk on sherry and wine. Neither had ever mentioned Iry.

Something was missing, and it made her uneasy.

At least the woods were cool and shady, blocking out the evening sun. But even knowing she had permission to be here, she was jittery. The Ghost Roads had always been forbidden and after her first, last and only encounter with their dangers, she'd never been tempted to break the edict.

Her ears seemed to prickle: were those footsteps behind her?

You're being stupid, she told herself firmly. Determined, she walked on and on, trying to ignore the feeling that unseen eyes were watching her.

She stumbled on a tree root, swearing softly-

"And here was me thinking you fishies were so polite," a voice remarked, sharp and nasal.

Oh no. She lifted her gaze to see three wolves watching her, one with a particularly nasty smile on his face.

"I'm paying a visit," she said with all the calm she could muster. "Iry Lupine and I have business."

The smiling one threw back his had and gave a raw, barking laugh, more like a jackal than a wolf. "Course you do, course you do. We all know how sociable Iry is! Why, just yesterday he had the Furies round for tea and tiffin." The smile widened until she thought his lips might split at the corners. "Nice try, but brainless. Just as brainless as trying to spy."

"I don't care what the Pack do," she said scornfully. "Just like you don't care what we do."

But her words only seemed to infuriate him – that grin was turning into a slow, hungry grimace, and the other two straightened, interest sparking in their faces. This wasn't going well.

"Yeah, and I'm sure you'd hate it if we started taking an interest." He moved forward. "You think we're such barbarians, don't you? I see it every time I go near your stinking lake, all of you sneering and staring."

Phi backed away. Running would be pointless - they knew this area better than she did. Little as she liked the idea, she was going to have to apologise for whatever it was they thought she'd done and hope she came away from it with nothing more than a few bruises.

Riose had taught her to punch, but he'd also told her that when she was outnumbered, the smart thing to do was whatever kept you alive. In fact, he'd said the best thing to do was let them think you beaten already, to cry and beg and grovel if it would let you catch them unawares later. He hadn't sounded like he was joking.

"Not me," she said steadily. "It's Don and his friends who make trouble, not me."

"You're that girl." One of the others spoke up, frowning. "You don't run about with the pod – you're friends with that human and the big-mouthed witch."

At that moment, she could have kissed Finn for his total inability to leave an insult unspoken. "I am," she confirmed. "My friends are from outside the pod. To be honest, most of the mer don't like me much."

Their leader eyed her. "You're that one, huh. That must make you Delphine Thetis."

Reluctantly, she nodded. .

"He told us to put her in a pit of spikes." The last of the three made this horribly disturbing statement, and Phi's stomach contracted into a tight, painful knot. Surely they wouldn't-

"Well, we don't have one, do we?" the leader said shortly.

Oh thank god.

"Morelli made us take out the spikes," he continued with so much regret that her head swam. "We'll just have to leave her down there."

She sped up her backward shuffle. Calling for help seemed futile – the town was beyond the limits of her telepathic strength, but even so, she sent out a faint cry in that direction, hoping.

"None of that now," chided the wolf. He gestured to the other two, and they moved to flank her. The only way out was behind her, and that meant turning her back on them. He snapped his jaws indolently, more crocodile than canine in that moment. "Maybe I'll leave you with a little something to remember me by."

The second one spoke up again, with a little shake of ash-blond hair. "No hurting, we were told."

"Not her," was the hissed answer. "He said we could do we what we liked as long as she could still croak out her marriage vows."

Don? Don was tangled up with the Pack? But...why? He hated them – he saw them as sport, as mere objects to mangle and beat when he needed somewhere to vent his temper.

"But-"

The leader made a brief gesture, and the boy fell silent with a compliance that only honed her fear. "Now..." he murmured, "Yeah, a little keepsake'd be fair payback." His stare was avid, sliding up and down her body as though he was eyeing up a prime cut of meat. His voice was full of false sympathy. "If you hold still, it'll probably just sting.

The clammy fear was quelled by a hot wash of anger, rising up from her ribcage to make the world seemed sharp-edged, awareness bristling over her bones.

Riose's advice floated up: she let her face fall into limp, frightened lines, even though what she really wanted to do was snarl right back. She even quivered, hoping he took it for paroxysms of terror.

He did, reaching out a hand to brush at her neck. "A beautiful bit of flesh," he murmured in tones so intimate they should have been said in other circumstances, sweeter ones. "God, I bet you taste good..."

His body was pressing against her, and in that moment as he half-closed his eyes and leaned back his head-

She would not let this happen.

Her knee slammed up and forward. He screeched like a banshee, and she brought her closed fist down on the back of his neck with enormous satisfaction as he doubled over...

Two sets of arms grabbed her and she was forced onto the ground, kneeling.

"That was not smart," the blond boy muttered very softly. "Worth seeing though."

Their leader lurched to his feet, his face a brilliant mask of fury. "You little bitch!"

Before she even saw him move, he hit her across the face so hard she thought she felt her cheekbone crack.

There was shouting, buzzing like locusts over the pain, but the next few minutes were a daze. They were dragging her somewhere, feet catching on the ground, seeming not to care about the branches that whipped her or the stones that scraped her feet. She fell, grazing her hands and knees, only to be hauled up and pushed on, head spinning. Twice she had to stop and vomit, and the second time earned her a slap that crumpled her onto the ground.

The leader went to do it again, but one of the others – the soft-spoken one – caught his arm, shaking his head. She supposed she should have been grateful, but she was too busy trying not to cry more than she had to, trying not to break in front of them.

"You can carry her then," snapped the leader, turning his back on her.

The soft-spoken one crouched in front of her. His eyes were a startling shade of blue, pale as porcelain. He gathered her up in his arms with ease and she was surprised at the care he took.

She was even more surprised when a light mental touch brushed her mind, though even that made her wince.

_I'll try to find one of your friends_, he said, and she caught a name like a whisper escaping from cupped hands. Sam, gentle Sam whose voice made her think of waves breaking. She nearly giggled at the silly thought, a dozen others flitting crazily through her head, shattering the pain into wicked shards that jabbed at her skull. _But I can't get away until tonight. Any earlier, and someone'll get suspicious. We weren't supposed to hurt anyone, we weren't, I didn't think he'd do that to you..._

Phi couldn't even summon the energy to thank him.

She drifted then, caught in the pain that spun about her like a vortex, drawing her down, down, down into a dark maw, ready to swallow her, to take her-

It was only when those warm arms laid her down onto a chilled, hard floor that she surfaced again. Everything was dim, the wolf retreating to climb up a knotted god, she was in a pit, she really was – all she saw was stone and a faint circle of light far, far above, briefly blocked by Sam's body as he crawled out, taking the rope with him.

And then she was alone, only the echoes of her pain for company.

Buried in the earth, bitter tears fell from her eyes, felt only dimly as she slid down, down, down into delirium.

_And it's something quite peculiar...  
Something shimmering and white  
That leads you here - despite your destination  
Under the Milky Way tonight._

X - X - X - X - X


	9. Chapter Nine

Evening. I apologise sincerely for the delay in getting this chapter out - I've had ridiculous amounts of trouble getting the internet set up, but it finally seems to be working. And it is a rather lengthy chapter.

My humble and delighted thanks to those angels who were kind enough to review last time: thank you **Yukatalamia, Marie Vulffe, Enigmatic Piscean, Bex Drake, Becki, Tracing-tt, Sumeera, CalliopeMused, Shards-of-ice, Daugain, Cianna Greenwood, Leian, Mental Twitch 'Sh33rs', Timeless, Jess, Ash **and last but never least, **No one**. I worship at your collective feet.

Thanks to Steph for beta-reading this mammoth!

Lyrics from Savage Garde's _Violet _(Album: Savage Garden) I hope you enjoy.

**Ripples Chapter Nine **

_If there's a way that you could be everything that you want to be  
Would you complain that it came too easy?_

For a long time, Phi drifted, her world filled with bizarre and frightening duality. There was stone under her fingers, yet she walked through a house of mirrors, her friends screaming noiselessly in every pane.

In her fever vision, she began to run, wanting nothing more than an escape from this personal piece of hell.

There was Celia, eyes wide and her lips drawn into a grimace. Flash: the image switched to Riose, a tear trailing down his face while he raised bloodstained fingers to his mouth. She called to him, but he didn't seem to hear her.

She spun, and there was Finn, hands pressed flat to the surface of the mirror, forehead thumping against the glass. A left turn led to a dead end and Jo, slumped on her knees, those lime-green eyes beseeching and bruised.

Phi turned to flee, and found her way blocked: mirrors circled her, a friend on every side, hunched and shivering, weeping, contorting, a soundless symphony that made her want to cover her eyes. Was this a warning, a premonition of what might happen if she went to the Furies – worse, was it what would happen if she didn't?

Flash: one by one, the images began to change into a boy with coppery eyes whose face she could now recognise. Even under the mask of bruises, she knew him. The mere sight of Zeke pierced her.

She feared him yet had liked him, felt the lure of his mystery even as she'd begun to brush it away, had known him and yet not known him in the least.

Flames danced about him, plucking at his body, drying out the bloody cross that marred his face, but not the plea in his eyes. What did he want, why was he burning? It was Aurora who had burned, not him, not him...

She spun, and he was behind her, flanking her, before her. The flames around him were rising, forcing her to shield her eyes, no longer orange but yellow. No longer yellow but white-

With one blinding rush, the boy was consumed, and when the glare over her vision had thinned, every mirror was empty.

Breathing hard, Phi stood for a moment. She didn't know what to do. It meant something, she knew that in a way she couldn't explain, but that was all she knew.

The mirror in front of her swung open like a door, and once more she found herself walking through long halls of mirrors, those beloved faces filling every pane, the only sound the ever-quickening thud of her feet, the heart that beat for them, with them, as she ran on and on and on and on...

Celia. Riose. Finn. Jo. Zeke.

Blood. Tears. Hunched backs and drawn lips. Shadows, strangling hands, paroxysms and twitching fingers, pleading, reaching, stretching, on and on and on and on...

All she loved, crumbling before her, and she was reduced to nothing but a spectator of the best pieces of her life.

X - X - X - X - X

Walked home by a silent Riose, Celia stepped up to the front door with a sense of relief. It was dark outside, and she never felt quite comfortable alone in the town late at night.

The rest of their time at Aspen's had been stilted, broken only by Zane getting out of bed to demand that 'the doggie' read to him. The toddler had then clambered onto Riose's lap, bitten him and pronounced him 'squishy'. Looking appalled, Riose held a squirming child at arm's length and requested that someone remove the vile little imp from his presence.

At which point, Zane had blown a raspberry at him, and started screeching like a demented monkey.

For a moment, Riose had watched in disbelief. Then he'd screamed back twice as loudly. Hands clapped over her ears, Celia had only been able to stare and wince.

It took half a minute of this rousing epiglottal concerto before one of the pair caved in.

And amazingly, it was Zane. The baby lamia had stared at Riose with those eerie, changing eyes and then announced 'squishy fun!' and spent the rest of the evening cuddling her friend's leg. 'Squishy' himself had spent the time trying to pry free from being hugged and slobbered on.

"I never knew you were so good with kids," she remarked, trying to keep the glee from her voice. "Zane's taken a real shine to you."

"I hate them." He gave a small shudder. "Repulsive little toads. Why do people bother?"

"Ask your mother," she suggested sweetly.

He gave her a bare hint of a smile. "I did. Apparently if you bring in the New Year with a bang, sometimes summer ends with a whimper."

Celia grimaced. "Too much information!"

"That's what I said. Anyway, I've got to run – she gets upset if I'm out too late." His eyes were astute. "You okay?"

Huh. She wasn't sure she'd ever be okay again. It felt like someone had moved the horizon, and the world she knew had expanded, receding further and further from her. "Near enough."

He nodded, and turned to go. Then before she knew quite what had happened, he twisted back to face her, a strange, almost confused look on his face. A step forward, and he'd taken her hand with a quiet glance at her for permission, though why he thought he needed it was beyond her.

Turning her hand, Riose ran a careful finger over the peacock-blue veins that showed on her wrist. "I never thought I'd have human friends," he said softly, tracing the path of her blood like he was choosing a course. "I never thought there'd be someone like you."

"No one ever does," she joked, because she didn't know what else to say.

His mouth quirked at the edges. "Thanks, Cee. For not running away."

She met his eyes seriously now, letting some of her uncertainty show. "Don't thank me just yet."

He gave a little shrug, and laid a soft kiss on the inside of her wrist. Nothing more, only that kiss, but it made a strange tingle run through her. "Everyone runs eventually," he said sadly, and she wondered who it had been. "And they're right to."

He hovered, as if there was more he wanted to say or do, before turning away.

But she caught him, her voice stopping him dead. "Ri?"

"Yeah?" he answered but didn't face her.

She looked at her wrist, where his lips had rested, and the words came out before she quite knew what she'd meant to say. "If I do ever run...promise you'll come after me?"

Celia thought she heard a smile in his voice. "Promise."

X - X - X - X - X

Zeke wasn't entirely sure where he was going or even why.

He had heard a call – a faint, frantic appeal, not meant for him, yet he'd felt an affinity with it. It had faded, and when he reached the spot where it was, only flattened patches of undergrowth showed anyone had ever been there.

He had meant to leave then, but something had plucked on his senses, light as a breath settling onto his skin, an intimacy he had felt before.

It was the very same allure that had drawn him to the lake the first time and every time since. When he heard his Lady of the Lake, some space inside him was filled, some place where he felt his despair meld into hers: and so released, lessen.

Was it her? He didn't know, but dry-throated and hopeful, he followed the trail. Often, he lost it and had to turn back until he found it again. More often, as the Pack stampeded past, his body dissolved into strings of smoke until he was sure it was safe.

And eventually, he found himself in a small clearing, stepping over rotten trees and carcasses. It stank to high heaven and lowly hell, but he had no urge to leave.

She was here. He knew it – he ached with the certainty. And then he realised he was kneeling at the edge of a pit and-

Oh god. That couldn't be...surely it wasn't...

Dazed, he called up fire and flicked it down into the depths. Down, down, further than he'd first thought, it danced like fireflies around the wilted figure at the bottom.

Delphine Thetis.

Without thinking, he drifted down in a smoky haze. He hardly knew what to do as he reformed in a crouch beside her recumbent body. She was so pale, except-

Bastards. Who'd done it?

The start of a massive bruise was spread across her face, as if someone had smeared blackcurrant juice across her skin. It had scarcely healed, so they must have hit her more than once.

He reached out to put a bubble of warm air around her and hesitated. If the fire twisted out from his control again...

And if you leave her, he argued, what'll happen to her then? She looks frozen, god, she's so still. I can't leave her like this – I don't care what Avy wants, no one deserves this.

Zeke swallowed down a tight knot of fear and spread his hands over her. Warmth flowed from his palms, covering her in a thickening blanket, and as he cradled her in his power, he became aware of her in a way that went beyond the tangible.

It wasn't merely the weight of her bones or the slide of her hair on the heat currents, nor the timid bump of her pulse on her wrists. It was a sense of how it felt to wear her skin, of how dreadfully tired she was, how confused, and oh, how her head ached-

He blinked and found himself touching his cheek in the exact place where that bruise stained her face. And in that moment, he couldn't tell his heartbeat from hers.

Startled, he couldn't focus on the air warming her: it shot upwards, escaping into the night. The slap of cold air on his face jolted him out of his stupor.

For a moment there, he hadn't known which of them he was. It had been...frightening, no, terrifying, astounding, exhilarating.

All of those things and none of them important. He had to get her out of here, because the Pack would-

His thoughts slowed, and he examined his new knowledge with incredulity. It was the Pack who had done this, and at Don Ivan's behest. They who had struck her, flung her here like a discarded doll to shiver and weep and hurt.

Bewildered by what he knew about her from that brief contact, he didn't pause to consider what she might have learned about him. Zeke used his power to hoist her up, up, out of that miserable darkness, following in a gust of smoke after her.

She needed to be somewhere safe, somewhere no one would look. Somewhere – yes, somewhere just like that.

X - X - X - X - X

Inside, her mother was on the phone, her voice bemused. "No, Dan...Celia's been out all evening, but I'll ask her when-ah, she's here." Her mother waggled her fingers, but the frown on her face boded ill. "Celia, have you seen Phi? Her father says she hasn't been home yet, and he's worried."

She shook her head. "No, but she's probably at Finn's. You know what they're like."

"Have you tried the Farriers?" her mother said. "Celia thinks the red-haired ruffian is probably leading your daughter down a path of delinquency...no, those weren't her exact words." Unashamedly, Celia eavesdropped. "Oh, I'm sure he does have a good heart, Dan, it's his pyromania I object to. The boy has a problem-"

Silence, then her mother rolled her eyes.

"I'm not sure arson is something one grows out of, Dan. Anyway, try the Farriers. Yes...you too...bye."

Jodie Slone put the receiver back with a grimace. "'Grow out' of it indeed. How was the hoodlum?"

Celia decided that payback was only fair, considering all the trauma Aspen had inflicted on her in the last couple of days. "He said he's looking forward to seeing you, and he could really use some help picking out flowers for the wedding."

Her mother beamed. "Wonderful. I was starting to think he was making excuses when he kept painting the house."

Celia exited quickly, lest her mother find a chink in her story and crashed into bed gratefully, pulling her pillow over her head to block out her brother's horrific nu-metal music.

She was sunk in a particularly enjoyable dream involving Heath Ledger and a banana split when a distant clattering threatened to wake her. Mumbling, she tried to block it out.

It carried on, and she mentally wailed as oodles of whipped cream and a famous smile floated away from her-

She woke to find it was one a.m. and someone was throwing stones at her window. Muttering sullen things about what she going to do to whoever it was, she jerked back the curtains and thrust open the window.

Who was that?

She fetched a torch and pointed it at the unfamiliar figure. It was a boy, one she'd seen around school now and then. He was in her chemistry class and was always amiable enough, if quiet. Sam something. A bit of a cutie, a bit of a mystery.

"I think you've got the wrong window," she hissed, desperate not to wake her mother, who would surely see this as an infraction of her house rules. The one night a tipsy Finn had serenaded her with his father's banjo, Jodie Slone had marched out, grabbed the hose and turned on the tap. 'You've lost that lovin' feeling' was never heard near the Slone residence again.

"Celia Slone?" came back a loud voice.

"Quiet!" she said, leaning further out. "My mom'll flip her lid if she finds you out here."

"Sorry, but it's important." There was anxiety in his voice, she realised. "It's your friend, Phi, she's in trouble with the Pack. I would have come sooner but I couldn't get away until now. They're paranoid as hell at the moment. As it is, I'm going to be in hot water when I get back."

He threw a glance over his shoulder, as if he expected the Pack to burst from the surrounding houses.

For a moment, the words were strangled in Celia's throat, but then she found her breath. "What do you mean 'trouble'? Where is she? What happened?"

"Pack politics," he said briefly. "We got told to keep everyone away from our territory tonight. Phi turned up, and...she kind of...hit Romulus. And he's got a nasty temper."

There was a lot missing from that explanation. "Nasty?"

"He beat her up." His voice was apologetic. "I couldn't stop him. He's stronger than I am, pretty much everyone in the Pack is. I had to leave her in the pit. Please – we have to get her out of there. She didn't look good. I think she needs a healer."

Oh god. She'd heard plenty of rumours about the Pack's infamous pit. Most of them had come from the one person who'd spent a lot of time in the woodland of Ryars Valley.

"I'll come," she said briefly, praying it wasn't a trap. "But I don't know a healer."

"Well, do you know anyone who'd make good backup? If the Pack are there, I'm going to be mincemeat and you're...well, you're human."

"I know exactly the people," she told him. "Wait there. I'll be down in a few minutes."

She surveyed her room, trying to think what she might need. A torch. Warm clothes, trainers, maybe painkillers.

Ten minutes later, she slung a rucksack over her back and snuck across the corridor with a cat-burglar's light step. Her brother's vile music was still pounding away, albeit quietly enough to let their mother sleep.

She knocked softly, and he swung open the door. It was a long-established routine: the only way the Slone children had of getting round their martial mother.

Billy took one look and blinked. "If this is a hot date," he whispered, "I feel sorry for the poor slob you're all dressed down for."

"I need you to cover for me," she hissed. "I have to go out."

He rolled his eyes. "Figures. Well, I owe you for the houseparty last month. How big a distraction?"

Hmm. Good question. If it was as serious as Sam had said, it looked like an all-nighter. "Huge."

With a long-suffering sigh, her brother turned to his desk and began rifling through the drawers. "All right. I've been saving this one for a big occasion...but I'm going to be grounded for sure, so you have to help me slip out to see Katie, okay?"

His obsession with nu-metal was only topped by his obsession with his girlfriend, who had a penchant for terrible poetry that didn't rhyme and all things black, gothic and tragic.

"I'll do anything," she said. He looked slightly startled, but waved her out, with a cluster of what looked like fireworks in his hand.

Celia slipped back into her room and flung the window as wide as it would go, ready to drop onto the garage roof and from there, onto the ground. A couple of quick phonecalls got Sam his very worried backup, and three minutes later, there was an almighty crash from downstairs.

Her mother's footsteps thundered past, followed by a shriek of rage.

She made good her escape, and gave Sam a brief nod. Nausea swilled around her stomach, but she made herself smile.

"Lead the way," she said. "Riose and Jo are meeting us at the end of the road."

X - X - X - X - X

Zeke laid Phi down on the springy turf, warming the air around her.

The pack would never dare to come here. This small grove at the edge of the woods was deemed haunted, a rumour he had taken care to promote with judicious use of his powers.

With a frown, he set a fire blazing on the ground, its curving dance a small comfort.

He felt as if he had passed through a looking glass, marking some unidentifiable transition in himself. On one side, Aurora, buried below ground, an invitation in her smile and a hot need in her eyes. Craving to understand him, yet always falling short, no matter how many words they swapped and how hungrily she pressed herself to him.

And on the other, this watery maid laid atop the grave, hotly determined not to need anyone. Delphine Thetis held his memories in the arches of her face, a remnant of Aurora – but there was a newness to her too. In repose, her face was far softer than Aurora's had ever been.

Cross-legged, he rested his chin on his interlinked hands and simply watched. He felt half under a spell, still hearing that faint and wild call, drawing him.

So she was his Lady of the Lake: even without hearing her voice, he knew it. Who else could have lured him to her, he who had felt her unspoken need webbing the nights so often before?

Realising this, a peculiar calm had settled over him. It seemed so easy now, so simple. He could not harm her – he would not. Was it his interference that helped put that bruise on her face, somehow, somewhere? Maybe yes, maybe no, but if he continued to act as Avy's puppet, greater harm would come to her.

For thirty thousand years he had wandered alone, alone even in Avy's company, searching for solace for someone who could understand him without needing to break him.

And here she was: his forbidden desire had a name and a face, and the ugly prospect of a life she didn't deserve. He had thought he wanted freedom, and now he found that he wanted her freedom more than his own.

Delphine Thetis. He barely knew her, and yet felt he knew her more intimately than her closest friend. It was strange, inexplicable, but the feeling persisted and he didn't fight it.

Breathing in, breathing out, he watched her as the night spun by, a wary guardian, half-enchanted. And as the minutes passed, he began to notice small oddities; as he inhaled, so too did she, breaths synchronised so they rose and fell together, a tide of two.

Patient, he waited, unaware of anything else except her, willing her to health with each breath, learning her with his eyes. The rest of the world might not have existed.

X - X - X - X - X

Celia had always thought the woodlands looked inviting. Maybe it was the call of the forbidden, or just the exotic tales Jo spun of hunting nights; but now that she was actually in them with branches brushing her shoulders and roots waiting to trip her, she only found it frightening.

"Easy, tiger," murmured Jo, catching her arm as she stumbled. The wildcat moved gracefully through the trees, feet noiseless.

"We're nearly there," Sam whispered, a silhouette ahead of them.

Riose brought up the rear, muttering dire imprecations about mud and insects. He rested a hand at the nape of her neck, his telepathic voice dropping into her mind: Riose, but more so.

_Let's keep it on a low frequency then_, he said dryly. _Sam, you sure we're downwind?_

She couldn't hear the werewolf's reply, but it must have been positive, because Riose murmured, _Stay here for a moment, Cee. Keep an eye on our wolf. I don't think it's a trap, but best to be sure, right?_

He and Jo peeled off into the darkness, and she was left to hug her arms about herself and try to calm her fear.

It was only a few seconds before the pair reappeared. She squinted in the gloom, trying to catch their expressions.

"She's not there," was Riose's grim proclamation. "Where would they have taken her?"

"It smells strange," chipped in Jo, puzzled. "Sam, come and have a look? It's too faint for me to follow."

Wildcat and wolf slipped back into the darkness. She began to follow slowly, feeling her way when she felt Riose's light touch, cupping her elbow.

"Want a hand?" he offered. "You shouldn't have come with us, Cee."

"I couldn't sit at home," she said. "I need to know she's okay. I know I'm not much help, but I can't just wait."

"I know." He sounded tired, and she glanced at his face to see it masked by shadow. "But if we run into the Pack, they might not realise you're human. Even if they do, they might not care."

"We'd better avoid them then," she said, fear tightening her throat.

They stepped into a dell that was etched clearly by the silvery light. Jo was in the centre and beside her, a wolf scented the ground. It raised its head to glance at them and she searched for traces of Sam in its inhuman eyes.

"He doesn't recognise it either," the wildcat announced, a dismal note in her voice. "But whatever it is, it's with Phi. Cee, we're going to pick up the pace. Think you can keep up?"

"I'll look after her," offered Riose. "You and Sam go ahead. As long as you don't get knocked out, I'll be able to sense you. And be careful. I can think of at least one thing with strange powers round here that's interested in Phi."

Lime-green eyes flashed like neon. "Don't worry, darling. I'm not planning on startling anyone who's got that much power. Catch you later."

A series of crackling sounds rose onto the air as Celia discreetly looked away. Jo had always said that people watching her shapeshift was rather like having someone watch you strip. When she turned back, wildcat and wolf were gone.

"Ready?" Riose asked.

She gathered what composure she had left, wrapping it around her. "Are you scared?" Or had the Furies numbed him to uncertainty and horror, had they dulled the sharp edges of life to a bleak knowledge?

There was a moment's silence before he confessed, "Terrified."

Somehow, that reassured her more than anything else could have.

X - X - X - X - X

Around her, mirrors crumbled, falling into heaps of dust. The dream swept back like brocade curtains, revealing...

Phi blinked groggily, trying to make something out of the strange view before her. Feeling seeped back in with her vision, and she realised the world looked so odd because it was askew: that was her arm pillowing her head, springy grass beneath her side, the paling sky above her and that, there-

Her breath snagged in her throat. That was a copper-eyed boy sat barely three feet away, his eyes intent on her. A fire was crackling merrily nearby, sending a plume of smoke into the air.

"How's your head?" The concern in his voice didn't reassure her at all.

She tried to raise herself up, and swallowed a groan as her head pounded. "What are you doing here?"

"I...found you in the pit. I didn't want to leave you there. You looked like you were in bad shape."

"I know about Aurora," she said defiantly, trying to persuade herself that if she sounded brave enough, her fear would wilt and die. "I know you killed her. Did you steal her body too, or was that the Pack?"

His eyes drifted behind her, and she half-rolled to see just what had caught his gaze.

Realisation came slowly, a growing iciness throughout her stomach, followed by a lazy, turning nausea. That stone, poking out from the earth, faded lettering on it...

Oh god. He had laid her on the very grave of the woman who'd worn her face, who'd fallen for the slick charms of a copper-eyed stranger by the lake, the same stranger who had her now. Who could do anything, anything, to her – she was trapped, she was helpless and what if he meant to do the same to her, to-

"It was me," he admitted and her attention snapped back to him. "I didn't mean to kill her."

"Oh, cooking her alive was just a tragic accident, right?" she threw at him, sarcasm sharpened by her fear.

"Yes," he said softly. "Sometimes they happen. More often than you might think."

The sadness in his voice almost roused her pity, but she told herself it was a ploy. "You murdered her."

He half shook his head, a brief and violent gesture. "I...it was an accident, for gods sake! Do I look like a killer?"

"Let's just say that the stalking and the kidnapping aren't exactly in your favour," she said tautly.

His breath hissed out in exasperation. "Don't you remember the bit where you shouted for help? You know, right before those wolves started smacking seven kinds of hell out of you? What about the bit where they dropped you in their pit? Do you think I don't know what happens to the people they put there?"

"Is it better than being burned alive?" she snarled back, fear and helplessness slowly turning to a comforting anger. She welcomed it, welcomed the heat that filled her bones and voice.

He flinched as if she'd slapped him. When he answered her, his voice was leached of emotion. "No. It's a lot slower than that."

She was left speechless.

Then emotion did enter his voice: hard, edgy bitterness. "Isn't that what you wanted to hear? Isn't it the gory details you're after? It couldn't possibly have been about hope or need or wanting someone who'd...who'd..."

He turned his head away, biting off the words.

That wasn't the reaction she had expected, and maybe it was just another part of the lies he'd spun so effortlessly – maybe it was another piece of the trap he was weaving for her, yet...she felt the smallest dart of doubt.

"Then tell me," she urged. "Why did she die?"

His laugh was sour. "Because I was a fool. Because I still am, I suppose." Those coppery eyes flared up in the night, and she saw the echoes of firelight in them. "You know what it is to be lonely, Delphine Thetis – to ache for someone, anyone, who can touch your life and make it better. I've heard it in your voice a thousand times, in every line you sing."

How long had he watched her? How many years had he sat silent, listening to her most intimate confessions? It was...god, it was unsettling and embarrassing and yet...if he'd wanted, he could have stolen her away before, much more easily. The walk home had plenty of shadowy nooks and quiet corners.

"Imagine that, then," he continued, a taut note in his voice. "And imagine it going on for so long you began to wonder why you even lived. Imagine being the only one of your kind in the world, imagine thirty thousand years of it."

Thirty thousand years. That couldn't be right. It just couldn't. Yet...she recalled the easy way he had bounced her own power back at her, recalled Jess saying that he felt like no one else on earth.

"What are you then?" she challenged. "Where did you come from?"

For a long minute, only the ambient noises of the woods pervaded the air.

"Fireblade made me," he said. "As Ryar made you. But she made you in your hundreds and she made you free. You are water, and I...I'm fire. The Arabians called me a djinn, and the prophets in the East called me an angel, but I'm neither of those things. I'm an elemental. If I want, I really can vanish in a puff of smoke...or a blazing inferno."

"Prove it," she demanded. Fire, as they were water. It made a strange sort of sense. If he had known Fireblade and Ryar, then her dream of him might have been true.

He raised his hands, turning them like a conjurer, saying: empty, see? And then...

And then his fingers simply became four thin flames, his skin falling away into swirls of fire. His knuckles became the cool blue core, his fingernails flickering orange blades. Breathless, she watched as first his palm and then his wrist melted away to rise again in leaps and licks of fire.

Unnerved, she eased herself to a sitting position. Her head swam, but the pain was bearable.

Only then, when she looked into his eyes, did she see what Jess had once glimpsed, all those years ago: fire, as if his skin was merely a thin casing to hide the creature that smouldered and soared within.

He tilted back his head and blew a long stream of flames from his lips. It lurched and writhed upwards as if fighting the currents in the air. Then she saw it was the shape of a bird, with shimmering wings and a hooked, glowing beak. Dazzled, she watched it glide and plummet, until it dissolved into a band of smoke.

"Parlour tricks," he said with a scorn in his voice that seemed aimed at himself as much as her.

"Impressive parlour tricks," muttered Phi, following the last thin trails of smoke as they withered into nothing more than a faint scent. "Is that your shape, then? Fire?"

"Yes. My beginning was fire, my end shall be fire and the truest of all my loves will be fire, but the years will burn me," he quoted softly.

Phi knew that tone: she had heard too many of the pod recite in that same way. "Who made that prophecy?"

"Ryar, of course. The future haunted her like no one else I have ever known. The more she saw, the more she feared it. In the end, she gave her gift away because she could no longer bear to know."

Yes, Phi thought. She gave it to us, and it lingers in our blood, poisoning our dreams. It will steal my mother's last breath because she is more afraid of uncertainty than of death. If it's such a gift, why does it feel like a curse?

"And did it haunt Aurora too?" she challenged, trying to thrust away the misery nestled at her heart, distracting herself as she had learned to even in her childhood.

"No. That was never what she was afraid of."

The girl Jess had described had known nothing of fear: brazen, reckless, flinging back her head to drink in danger like an exotic cocktail, but never fearful.

"What did she have to fear?" she asked softly.

"Everything, of course," was his answer, almost baffled that she had asked. "Do you think it's easy to be the only one of your kind? She was lonely, Phi, just like us. It's an old story, lonely people looking for something that might make them less alone."

"She was't alone," she said. "She had the Pack and the pod."

"She said the same, at first," he answered. "Later...she told me she was tired of being different. She was afraid your leader – Alwyn, that was his name – would drive her out. How he hated her. God, he had contempt for me, but for Aurora...he thought her grotesque, a mismatched thing of fur and fin. She was right to be afraid."

Alwyn again, rearing his ugly head. "But he didn't kill her," she pointed out, aware that her fear was cooling under a slow trickle of curiosity.

"No." His lips twisted, a grey sneer beneath the moonlight.

"What happened?"

He gave a low, bewildered laugh. "She...god, she was so full of dreams. Dreams of this life together, where neither of us were alone. She made me hope again, when I had almost forgotten how. She was beautiful and charismatic and ferocious, and I thought that maybe she was right – that I wouldn't have to be alone."

"Did you love her?" she asked, unsure why the question had grown in her like a lightning seed.

He hesitated, drawing his knees up to his chest like a child. "No..." he said finally. "I didn't know her well enough to love her. But I cared for her more than I had for anyone since Ryar died...I even thought that in time, I would come to love her. That was why I agreed."

To what? The silent question barely formed on her lips.

Zeke met her eyes squarely, defiance taut in his jawline. "I agreed to make her like me. I'd seen Ryar make the mer, and I thought I understood how. I wanted to do it slowly, to change her over time, but she kept arguing. Alwyn was threatening her, and she came to see me more and more often because she was afraid to be around the pod. He hit her once, but she ran away before he could do it again. The marks were gone in a couple of hours, but I think it was the first time she truly felt vulnerable."

"Jess said she was powerful," she commented softly.

"Jess?" He blinked. "I remember her. She was one of Aurora's friends. We talked sometimes, but I don't think she really approved of me." He shrugged, and added, "She was right – Aurora was powerful. But not physically, not enough to hold off more than one of the pod if they turned nasty."

His voice became husky, strained with regret and flickers of old weariness. "Each night, I fed a little of my power into her, and I could feel it under her skin – I could see it in her eyes. But after Alwyn hit her, it wasn't enough for her. She wanted more, she always wanted more and she was afraid that he would come for her. And eventually she convinced me.

"We went to the lake in the dead of night, because she said that she wanted to say goodbye to the water. She knew she could never go back, not while Alwyn was alive. It's stupid, but I think he'd have been even more insulted by her...unwillingness...to remain pod than by her existence."

Yes, she thought, trying to imagine her great-grandfather, but strange: his fanatic's eyes were Don's. Yesterday's tyrant, today's tormentor, sharing the same slick, deceiving heart.

"So we sat down, and I leaned forward, and kissed her. I poured all my power into her, every drop, and she breathed it in like she was drowning. I could feel her changing – she glowed in my arms, she was so hot I could barely hold her..."

The words stumbled, died, but he picked up the tale again, a pain in his voice that she could not deny. "And then the power reached the heart of her. The place where she was Aurora – where she was mer, her soul, maybe, if you believe in such things." Bitterness shredded the words into staccato anger. "And her entire body was fire, but she wasn't – she couldn't be, she was already mer, and nothing I could do would change that. Maybe Fireblade could have, but I'm no Drax, I'm nothing but a ghost of what they were."

His breath sawed raggedly on the air. "She started to burn then. Oh...god...I couldn't stop it – I tried, I did, I tried to draw the fire out, but it was too late. Her body was fire, and her soul was still water, and the two just couldn't exist together. By the time I'd drawn out all the power, she was dead."

Dull, hollow, his eyes were focused on the ground. The shame filled each word, reluctantly spilling from him. "I killed her. I didn't even kill her for something as noble as love. I killed her because I was lonely, because I was desperate, because I was a fool."

And that, she thought, could be the story of her own life too. Wasn't that what she had seen in that frantic dream? The paths she took had led to the pain of her friends, no matter how she twisted and turned, no matter how far and fast she fled.

If she made a wrong choice, might she too speak with a killer's voice, move within a murderous body?

Lonely. Desperate. Foolish. All her actions lately seemed to have been born from one of the three.

"Aren't we all?" she answered bitterly. "And you've lived here ever since?"

She felt his hesitancy, hovering on the air. "Not by choice," he said finally. "I'm a slave. Fireblade gave me to a woman as a gift."

"Surely she must be dead."

"Very little is sure," he answered, not quite an evasion, not quite an answer.

He looked straight at her then and his stare pinned her breath clean in her throat. It was honey and wine and lightning, mixing to a golden brew in his eyes, and she could not say whether it was the sweetness or the anguish or the danger that struck her most sharply.

I should look away, she thought, feeling the moment stretch further and further, until it was no longer two strangers sharing an unspoken understanding, until it was not even an awkward silence punctuated by a need to communicate something, anything. It had become a challenge, to look into the welter of emotions there and see herself reflected back.

If he was her soulmate-

"Am I interrupting?"

Both their heads snapped round. Phi could only gape at the apparition that stood there, half-shadowed by the trees.

Joana Katter gave her a small nod and dusted mud from her palms. "Hear you ran into some trouble, darling. Did the nice man help you out of it?"

He'd better have helped you, her precise, icy tones suggested.

"He rescued me," Phi said. "The Pack put me in their pit."

"So we heard." Jo yawned and the light bounced from small, sharp fangs as if this was nothing more than a casual meeting. But there was nothing casual about the claws that had sprouted in place of her nails, wicked long knives that danced a mambo on her thighs. "And does your friend have a name?"

"Zeke," he threw out, not moving a muscle.

"Well, we'll take it from here, Zeke," the wildcat said sweetly, a wealth of sincerity in her smile. "We need to get Phi home and to a healer."

His face was blank, as perfect and practiced a mask as the one Jo had donned. It took her breath away, how easily they set aside themselves; where was the boy who had spoken to her of hurt and longing? Where was her childhood friend, buried inside this green-eyed stranger who sliced at the air?

"You'll need someone to distract the Pack," he said. "Unless you plan on using that wolf who's hiding in the shadows?"

She started. A wolf-

"Sam," supplied Jo, shifting her attention to Phi. "He told us where you were."

Sweet, hesitant Sam, with a mind like the rolling ocean. Yes, she remembered. "Thank you," she said gravely to the wolf that stepped forward. He had risked a lot for a girl he didn't even know. She owed him.

"And no, we weren't planning on using him as bait," Jo carried on bluntly, focused on Zeke once more.

"So," Zeke offered, "it might be a good idea if they hear him and me fighting. After all, he needs an explanation for where he's been, right?"

The faintest hint of respect broke Jo's masquerade but she hid it quickly. "And you can hold off a pack of wolves, can you?"

"I can make them chase after ghosts," he replied, equally businesslike. "I can keep them away from you and your friends. Leave me to look after myself. You look after your friend."

The wildcat gave a slow, small nod. "All right, darling. You and Sam had better find somewhere to kick up a fuss, then, and we'll get Phi home."

"Make sure you do," Zeke said curtly, getting to his feet.

"And maybe..." The warmth was fled from Jo's words, only a chilly, prickling threat in its place. "...when our paths next cross, we'll have a little chat about your heroic deeds – and their motivation."

"Why not ask Delphine?" suggested Zeke in a voice as dead as his eyes. "She knows."

"She knows what you told her," came back the daggered retort. Those yellowed claws flashed and diced the air. "But we'll save it for later, darling."

The moment he and the wolf had gone, two shapes dissolving into darkness, the wildcat let out a shaky breath and doubled over, hands on her knees. "I never, ever, want to do that again," she muttered.

"Are you okay?"

Jo glanced up and gave her a tight smile. "Was that your lakeside stalker?"

"Yeah."

"He's scary," she said tautly. "I've never smelt anything like him. Close up, he reeks."

She blinked. She hadn't noticed anything, but then she didn't have Jo's finely tuned feline senses. "Of what?"

The wildcat hesitated. "I don't know," she admitted. "A little like incense, a little like smoke, but mostly like something else. He smells like a damn priest and he spooks me!"

"He spooks me too," was Riose's quiet confession as he and Celia appeared, him leading her by the hand. "I can't smell him, but this close...I could feel him. What the hell is he?"

"Later," ordered Celia, scurrying over to put her hand on Phi's forehead as if she had a fever, not an almighty headache. "Did you really give on of the wolves the Slone knee?"

That famous family move had been taught to Celia, Jo and Phi by Mrs Slone, who was a firm believer in women's liberation, including a woman's right to incapacitate any man who had trouble understanding the word 'no'. The Slone elbow, fist and foot had also featured highly in the demonstration on an unknowing Finn.

"Not the smartest idea ever," commented Riose, kneeling down to peer into her eyes. The slightest of mental probes made her flinch. "Sorry, Phi, just seeing how bad it is."

"How bad is it?" Jo asked, coming to join the ministering pair.

Riose's frown matched her father at his sternest. "Bad enough that we'll have to save the yelling for tomorrow."

Jo sighed. "Good. I can't summon up a good chastening tonight."

"I could," Celia said brightly.

Phi clung on as Riose gathered her up in his arms, holding her as if she weighed little more than a kitten. To him, she probably didn't. "Cee, scolding is a genetic trait in your family," retorted Jo.

"Sssh." Riose was walking carefully with her, trying to jar her as little as possible. She appreciated it. "Let's get home."

Please, she thought, but the picture that came to mind wasn't her house.

It didn't surprise her that she thought of the lake, its inky waters wide and welcoming, sometimes full of tiny stars that danced swirling patterns in the water, but it did surprise her that a copper-eyed stranger sat amidst the rushes, a silent audience as she poured forth her heart.

She wondered if she was feverish, if he had crept inside her to leave this soft heat pooled in her body. And when she shut her eyes, for a scant moment, it was not Riose who carried her.

_In a way, we're the same two people looking out to sea  
For a wave that will carry all our fantasies._

X - X - X - X - X


	10. Chapter Ten

Long time, no write. Humble apologies for the delay (now over; I have a whole summer to write in.), and enormous thanks to the wonderful people who were kind enough to review last time round: thank you **girltype, CalliopeMused, leian, Shards-of-Ice, no one, Bex Drake, tracing-tt, Miss Mary Lou, Enigmatic Piscean, yutakalamia, K'Ranna, I'm Freaky But You're a Freak, goldenshadows, annmarie delacou**r and the lovely **Indygodusk**. You made my day!

Comments and criticisms are much adored – I'd love to hear what you think. Hope you enjoy reading.

Lyrics belong to Roberta Flack's _Killing Me Softly_.

**Ripples Part Ten**

_I felt all flushed with fever,  
Embarrassed by the crowd,  
I felt he'd found my letters and read each one out loud._

After Jo and Celia left for home, it was a silent journey into the suburbs. Riose's body kept most of the cool night breeze from her, and she left her head in the crook of his neck.

"Do I need to tell you how lucky you were?"

Despite the quiet tone, Phi knew he was angry. She could feel it in the tightness of his grip.

"No," she admitted. "I didn't think."

Understatement: how avid she had been. Chasing freedom, chasing hope, finding only the copper eyes of a kindred soul and smooth white bones.

"What the hell were you doing there? The Ghost Roads, Phi! Of all people, I thought you knew better." He dug his fingernails into her side as a sort of punctuation.

"Don't poke me," she snapped. "I was visiting Iry Lupine."

"Was that one of Finn's stupid dares?"

"No." Phi produced her trump card. "My father asked me to."

"Did he tell you go on your own?"

"He didn't tell me not to," she hedged.

He heaved a sigh, some of the tension vanishing. "Common sense doesn't run in your family, does it?"

"Nope. Just the sixth sense," she said glumly.

For a while, the only sound was the pad of his feet, almost in time with the throbbing in her head. "We're here."

She raised her head, blinking away fuzziness. Sandwiched between a pair of derelict warehouses was a building strung with fairy lights and neon, a gaudy tribute to the god of tastelessness. Letters ten feet high read: _The Chill_. The distant thump of music came from the half-open door, guarded by a bouncer who gave them a flinty stare. Ryar's Valley's lone nightclub was always popular, if only by default, known for its cosy atmosphere and its cheap drinks.

Not known, in other words, for its ability to heal concussions.

Baffled, she kept quiet as Riose wandered up an alley to the back of the club, where he kicked at a door.

It swung open to reveal the club's proprietor, Cougar Redfern, glaring at them. "What do you..."

The glow from inside gave him an angel's radiance, belied by the hard, angular face and grim mouth. There was rarely trouble in the vampire's club: regardless who started it, he would finish it.

"She needs a healer." It was a demand, not a request, and not one she would have dared make. "The Pack got bored."

The lamia didn't even hesitate before gesturing them inside. "You're in luck, Orage. Best damn healer in the whole town dropped in for drinks tonight."

The door opened straight into an anteroom, filled with chairs and a sagging sofa. The whole room had a battered look, except for an enormous chandelier that glittered in the centre of the ceiling. Cougar vanished through another door, leaving Riose to lay her on the sofa.

"Have you come here before?" she asked, careful to keep her voice low.

He perched on the arm and gave her a little nod. "Once. The Furies started threatening my mom. He put a stop to it."

She didn't bother to ask why a nightclub owner had influence with the Furies. Somehow, she had the feeling it would be safer for her not to know.

I was lucky, she told herself. If it hadn't been for Sam, if it hadn't been for Zeke...

"In here," she heard Cougar say, and opened her eyes to see a woman bending over her.

Fingertips touched her temples and she felt a cold web sink through her head, as if the witch was casting a net to catch her pain. She held still, staring up at her unlikely saviour.

The eyes that seemed to look straight through her were moss-green, narrowed in concentration. Black hair was pinned back loosely, escaping to curl at her neck and ears, but the witch was the only person in the room wearing anything resembling a smile. The scent of herbs billowed from her, mixed with perfume and soap.

Behind her, Riose was watching, arms crossed. But it was Cougar Redfern who caught her eye, his face unexpectedly tender, almost vulnerable, his lips parted as if he were on the cusp of confessing something.

This ordinary woman had elicited a hunger extraordinary in its intensity, had poised Cougar Redfern's world on the edge of some immense tumble. Would someone ever look at her like that? Would she ever glance up, unknowing, to see that same heat in someone's face, to realise that she had seized their breath and halted their very heart in its beating?

God, how she wished they would, how she wished for someone to leave her yearning, burning, to fill her with passion and erase the acid taste of loneliness.

"You've got an impressive concussion," the woman announced, straightening. "What you need is a couple of days rest..."

Phi opened her mouth to interrupt, and the witch held up a hand.

"But," she continued, "I have this funny feeling you're going to tell me that you don't have time to rest."

"I don't," agreed Phi, craning her neck so she could see the witch's reaction. "Nightworld business. Pod business."

"And what's a pod girl doing getting tangled up with the Pack?" Cougar asked from where he leant against the wall. "We all know they like you about as much as they like me."

She met those heated eyes, and swallowed her nerves to put on her father's polite smile. "Like I said, pod business."

His smile widened. "All right, keep your secrets. But take it from one who knows – at least let your friends in on it. Deep, dark secrets have a way of coming back to bite you on the ass. Right, Orage?"

Riose's stare was icier than liquid nitrogen. "Only if you turn your back on them."

The witch ignored them both and turned back to Phi. "I do love it when they get territorial," she muttered. "Vampires. They've got more pride than sense."

"It could be worse," Phi offered. "If they were wolves, they'd start peeing on the carpet right about now."

The witch covered her mouth, but the crinkles at the edge of her eyes gave her away. When she took her hand away, her face was solemn again. "You really should leave that wound to heal on its own. I can fix it quickly, but it's going to hurt, and it's going to leave you pretty tired for a day or so."

"Please," she said quietly.

The woman sighed. "Hold still then."

She placed her palm flat on Phi's head, sending a tide of sensation rushing from her cheek to her crown. Phi gasped as the pain intensified, as if the woman's fingers were sinking through her flesh to the deepest point of the damage, adding a new sting: this one sharp and stabbing.

Those bladed fingers seemed to curl about the pain, holding it tightly, containing it. Had Phi been concentrating, she would have seen a faint green glow around herself and the woman, as tangible as the sweet scent of oregano and lemongrass that rose into the air.

The fingers clenched, closed...and then tore from her flesh, bringing a yelp from her throat.

Eyes watering furiously, gasping for breath, Phi sat up, holding herself up with one shaking arm. The pain was gone – her head was clear.

The woman opened her fist and dusted off her hands. "Done," she announced. "Get some sleep. Try to keep the beatings to a minimum. Avoiding the Pack will help with that."

"I'll try," she offered, swinging her feet onto the floor. Her legs felt watery, and there was an ache seated deep in her body, but hopefully a few hours of sleep would help that. "Thanks. I owe you one."

The witch shrugged. "I don't keep score."

X - X - X - X - X

She woke from groggy dreams full of smoke and secrets. A glance at her clock told her it was late in the morning, but the feeling of having been run through a mangle and then thoroughly wrung remained. And she had her father to face. At least he'd agreed it was best to keep her mother in the dark about the whole mess.

He was waiting at the table when she came down, looking as weary as she felt. "How are you this morning?"

She shrugged, wary. "Okay. Tired."

"Do I need to tell you that going on the Ghost Roads alone was foolish?"

"No. I didn't think."

He rubbed his forehead. "I should have warned you, but I didn't think the wolves had become so violent. Phi, I don't want you to go anywhere near the Pack if you can avoid it."

"Did you tell Don that too?" she asked sweetly.

Her father frowned. "Why on earth would I need to?"

"The Pack took me because he ordered them to," she revealed, her voice as flat as she could make it.

Her father sat up straighter, and she saw something close to resignation settle onto his face. "Phi, that's ridiculous. You know as well as I do that Don dislikes the Pack – which is a situation I'm not comfortable with, and you can rest assured that I'll address it soon, and to suggest he's...he's ordering them to attack you-"

The worst part of it all was the disappointment heavy in his voice, soft and pitying in his eyes.

"I'm not making it up," she protested. "The wolves said-"

"I'm sure the wolves would like nothing better than to cause trouble among us," he interrupted, his voice firm. "Oh, Phi, if you've seen Jess, then you know there's bad blood between the Pack and the pod. This isn't the first time they've tried to divide us with hearsay, and I doubt it'll be the last. What better way than to convince you Don was behind it all – especially when it's no secret you two have had your differences."

"We're still having them," she reminded him tautly. "Dad, if Don did-"

"No more of this, Phi!" She flinched back at the harshness of his words. The anger was gone almost at once, and only regret was left in its wake. "I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean to snap. It's just – when I think how much worse it could have been...if I'd been less preoccupied..."

"It's okay," she said quietly, but a lump was working its way up her throat.

"Is it?" he asked, sounding young and bewildered. She didn't know how to cope with this man, who was not her sure, confident father. "Sometimes I wonder."

She didn't know what to say: she had no words of comfort or solace, nothing but a feeling of limp helplessness. If you don't know what to do, she thought at him, how am I supposed to?

He let out his breath in a long sigh. "Phi, do you have any proof that Don was involved in the attack on you?"

Nothing but words, nothing but her own certainty of his character. "No," she admitted reluctantly. "But...he knows I don't want to marry him."

He nodded. "All right, baby. I'll bear in mind what you've said. And if you go to see Iry, take some of your friends."

"My landlubber friends?" she said, more of a bite on the words than she intended.

His eyes, the same dreamy grey as her own, were wry. "It's your mother who dislikes them, not me. You know I've always supported your right to choose your own friends."

"Yeah. Sorry." She wanted to say something else, to try and dissolve the terse atmosphere, but she knew that it was more than just the events of last night. If her father was still encouraging her to see Iry, whatever the werewolf had to tell her had to be unimaginably important, but she couldn't think what it could be. It puzzled and worried her in equal amount. "Riose and Jo are going with me this afternoon."

"Good." He offered her a half-smile. "Don't be too hard on your mother, Phi. The pod's all she's ever known. She's lived for us."

The thought surfaced in her head with the vicious promise of a shark's fin: and she's dying for us too.

X - X - X - X - X

Zeke had avoided Avy for as long as he could, but he knew he'd left it too long when the first jolt of a spell woke him from exhausted sleep.

Before he could react, he was on his feet, being pulled towards her. He tried to resist, but felt his joints straining, trying to go in two directions at once. Still, he threw his weight backwards, slow pain starting to swell in his spine and knees.

If there was one magic Avy was born to, it was compulsion, and this particular spell had been laid on him after Aurora's death. Insurance, she called it, this invisible leash always waiting to tighten and haul him back to her like a dog.

It was stupid to fight it, he knew, but he wasn't ready to face her. If she caught even the faintest wisp of his intent to betray her...

So hide it, he told himself. It won't be the first time you've hidden something. Hide it in the truth – that's the safest place for it. Yes...if she thinks you're just trying to win Delphine Thetis's trust, but that you like her, that your guilt comes from betraying Delphine, not her...

It might work. But he would still have to be careful.

The ache in his body was building to unbearable heights. Finally, though it galled him to do so, he gave in, letting the spell guide him back to Avy, back to his jailer.

X - X - X - X - X

Riose and Jo deposited her at Iry Lupine's door with martial efficiency. The journey had been a stream of quiet scolding from Riose with Jo throwing in the occasional sarcastic line, and by the time they got there, Phi felt so drained that she could hardly muster a reply.

They're only doing it because they care, she reminded herself after yet another lecture on the perils of wolves. Really, they are.

"Now, try not to annoy this wolf," advised Jo as she settled herself by the front gate, idly swinging a baseball bat in one hand. "From what I hear, he doesn't have a pit of spikes, but he does have a nasty bite."

"A very nasty bite," confirmed Riose, perching on the fence post. "Be careful."

"I'll do my best," she said dryly. Both of them shot her stern looks, but Phi pretended not to see them and turned her attention to Iry's home.

So this was where a lone wolf hid. The house stood in the midst of a swathe of cleared land, poking up like a fang. It had a hasty, ramshackle look to it, but touches of care showed in the neatly gravelled path and the large sign: "Beware of the dog."

The stones crunched under her feet as she approached. No bell; Phi banged as loudly as she could on his door.

It was yanked open with a mutter of "I told you, I ain't interested in double glaz-"

And then his eyes took her in, and he blanched under a leathery tan.

For a moment they only stared at one another, wolf and mermaid, and she saw the scars of old love, etched in the shocked slackness of his mouth and the bitter hope widening his eyes.

Then he breathed in raggedly. "Delphine? Dan Thetis's little girl?"

Not Aurora. Whatever you were hoping. "That's me."

"You'd better come in. Dan told me you were comin' over, but I ain't seen you since you was knee high."

Dan: he spoke like he knew her father well. But everyone knew Iry Lupine was a hermit with a tendency to aim a gun at anyone who put a toe on his land.

Yes, and lately, she was finding out that what 'everyone' knew was often a glossy lie. Why shouldn't this be too?

Still, he was a wolf, and after her earlier encounter, she was determined to keep control of the situation – and that meant keeping him off-balance.

"And you haven't seen Aurora in a while either," she said bluntly.

His shoulders twitched, and he came to a stop, but didn't move to face her. His voice was rough as sandpaper, but whether it was anger or sorrow, she couldn't tell. "Show me someone who has."

I could show you a dozen, she thought. How many of the pod look at me and see her? Do they see some sort of salvation too – is that why they think I should lead them? Is that all anyone wants me to be? Someone else, something else – anything else.

He led her into a messy sitting room with a stiffness that said he wouldn't forgive that remark easily. Nothing special about the room, except for one striking portrait that only stood out because she had seen it in miniature earlier.

She studied the frozen face of Aurora like the map of a strange country, a realm that would lie forever undiscovered. The set of her eyes and nose were unnervingly similar to her own, her irises the same cool grey, but the tilt of the smile was different: wicked, making promises that she might or might not keep. Around the unembellished strokes of her face, the bright tangle of red hair was harsh, allayed by the hand that was brushing it back behind her ear.

Alike and yet different.

"Strikin', ain't it?" His dry voice interrupted her, and she glanced over to see Iry stood by the door, arms crossed.

How had he looked back then, when Aurora had lived? Not so hard, surely, nor with the lines of his face so deeply grooved. He was a jumble of earth colours, from the pewter streaks in his hair to the ashy colour of his eyes, tanned from a life spent running wild.

"She was very beautiful," she said gently, hoping he would take it as the apology she meant it to be.

"She was. An' she knew it. Just like I guess you know you've got pieces of her right there in your face." He studied her. "You ain't beautiful, not by any means, not like her, but you got the same look in your eyes."

Charming. She might have been insulted if she'd had the energy, but as it was, Phi settled for: "What look?"

"The one that says the world's done somethin' to offend an' you're goin' to pummel it till it's put right."

She had to smile grimly. "Sounds about right. Maybe you can help me out."

Iry moved to sit down, and even here there was a lightness to his steps that said he might spring at any instant. "Well, I'm thinkin' that's why you came a-callin'. If you know about Aurora, you've already spoken to Jess."

"She said it was your fault my parents got married."

His eyebrows shot up. "That's a bit of an exaggeration. I might have been around for a lot of it, but I did not tell Marie to drag your father under the mistletoe and give him a dental exam, not mention a phys-"

"Ew!" She clapped her hands over her ears. "No gacky details, please! They're my parents."

He eyed her. "An' just how do you think you got here?"

"The stork," Phi answered firmly. "So let's keep this at a nice, safe U rating, okay, with rose-tint where necessary."

"All right, you can have the clean version. It's still full of scandal. Did Jess tell you about the changes Alwyn made after Aurora died?"

However lightly he said it, she saw the flash of pain that passed through his eyes.

"Some of it," she said. "She didn't agree with him, though."

"A lot of the pod didn't," Iry revealed. "And a lot did. It split them straight down the middle, but Alwyn had enough support from the people with influence. Jess and her friends got married off to people they were mostly indifferent to. But she made the best of it, an' Ray – would'a been your godfather, I 'spect – was a good man. They managed to find love in the whole mess. But not everyone did."

Sadness mingled with a rush of affection for her godmother.

"Well, the unease was growin' among all the kids who had to live with Alwyn's rules. Your grandparents were lucky in some ways – they married young, before all the furore with Aurora came along – an' unlucky in the worst way."

He fell silent, his expression unreadable. "It went on like that for a while. I was just about the only one of the Pack who still talked to any of the mer, an' Jess had to sneak out late to meet me. By the time your parents were old enough to get hitched, the atmosphere was gettin' nasty. There'd be shoutin' matches so loud you could hear 'em in the woods."

"Alwyn was furious that his own son – your granddad – was tryin' to defy him. He'd already got your dad picked out as his heir an' he wasn't lettin' anyone put 'crazy ideas' into his head."

The more Phi heard about her great-grandfather, the less she liked him.

'Course, by then, your dad had already got them ideas – I reckon he'd had 'em ever since he helped Marie move house. It's only a little thing, I know, but it was the first time they'd really been alone. See, Marie was engaged to Laurie Ivan, so she was always with his best friend. But that day...well, it was throwin' it down-"

"You were there?" she asked, startled.

He nodded. "Marie's family didn't mind me. They were my friends before Aurora, an' they wouldn't let someone like Alwyn tell 'em who to see. Well, yeah, it was chuckin' it down with rain, an' your mother was drippin' wet, all that ridiculous make-up she used to wear was gone and you could just see it in his face when he looked at her."

There was an intensity to his voice she couldn't identify. "See what?"

"That he was seein' her as more than their prophetess – more than a girl who'd tell him how to live, more than the celebrity who got paraded in front of 'em every so often. She didn't have many friends, your mother, not with Alwyn treatin' her like a museum piece, keepin' her away from everyone."

He gave a heavy sigh. "An' well, that changed it all. Not at once, but suddenly you'd go into a café an' they'd be there, havin' an argument about some book. Or you'd find 'em out walkin', an' there'd be somethin' about 'em...always made me think they'd be holdin' hands if they thought they could. Jess told me that they never took much notice of each other in front of the pod, but the fact that your dad was Alwyn's heir an' Marie was the seer - well, it gave 'em an excuse, you know?"

"But...why was that so bad?" She spread her hands. "I mean, surely that was good for the pod."

"Not in Alwyn's eyes. He was the one who decided Marie should marry Laurie Ivan. See, the Ivans were some of his strongest supporters, but Marie's parents were against the changes. He wanted to get her away from bad influences. Your dad – well, Alwyn thought he could keep him sweet by letting him have some choice, and at the time, he'd decided he'd like to grow old with Michelle Thelassoe."

She leaned forward. "But I still don't see why there was such a huge furore. Why's it taboo?"

He stared at her and a slow realisation passed over his face. When he spoke, his tone was very gentle, and she didn't understand why, only that it worried her. "Because all those marriages were sealed under blood-oath. And your parents broke it."

Still, it meant nothing to her. In fact, if it had been broken before, why was such it a big deal for her to break it again? If her parents, of all people, had discarded such a vow-

"Maybe I'm just being dumb, but I don't understand what that has to do with it."

The werewolf scrubbed at his hair. "I don't know how to deal with this," he muttered, more to himself than her. For a moment there was silence, then he said simply, "Why do you think you don't have any grandparents?"

"They're dead," she said. "They died before I was-"

And then it hit her.

Disbelief was her first reaction; disbelief, followed by a slow subsuming horror. She could only stare at him, willing the words to take on different meaning, but the pity in his eyes was terrible confirmation.

And suddenly a dozen things made sense. Why so many of the elderly treated her like she was their grandchild. Why no one ever spoke of her parents' marriage. Why the rift between Laurence Ivan and her mother had never been – could never be – mended...except, perhaps, by another oath and another marriage. Why her parents threw themselves so completely into every aspect of the pod.

"No," she whispered, but the denial wouldn't stick. She could feel her naivety crumbling around her, feel her confidence eroding like sand under waves. She had to know, one way or another, and so she met his eyes. "Did they really do it? Because my parents broke blood-oath?"

He nodded, and she thought she felt part of her heart shatter. "The pod killed your grandparents."

_I prayed that he would finish,  
But he just kept right on...  
strumming my pain with his fingers,  
Telling my whole life with his words,  
Killing me softly with his song._

X - X - X - X - X


	11. Chapter Eleven

It has been a long time, and I am really quite embarrassed about it. My humble apologies, but I am now up to Part Fourteen and I _will_ be posting the next part two to three weeks from today. (By October 10th - my word on it.) Many, many thanks to you lovely people who reviewed last time round - thank you: **yukatalamia **(that bizarre message was because I edited out a chapter that I neither liked nor needed), **Perceive, indygodusk, Bex Drake, Ahnkitomi, Cianna Greenwood** and last but very much not least, **terriestal-angell**!

I would adore hearing your thoughts, opinions, criticisms - please let me know what you thought!

Lyrics come from Delta Goodrum's_ Innocent Eyes_. Hope you enjoy reading!

**Ripples Part Eleven**

_Seems I'm lost in my reflection  
Find a star for my direction  
For the little girl inside who won't just hide  
Don't let me see mistakes and lies  
Let me keep my faith and innocent eyes..._

Phi could only stare at Iry, unaware quite how dazzled her face was, as if the horror he'd shown her had some sickly, blinding light of its own. "How could they?"

Not the pod. She had grown up among them, part of an extended family. Fine, she might not like Don and his friends, she might have forged her friendships outside the pod, but that kind of violence-

Murder, she corrected herself. Don't dress it up in words. It was murder.

"You ain't the first to ask that," Iry answered. "Odds are good you won't be the last."

Questions piled up behind her eyes, clogging her thoughts. "Tell me. Please."

They had been her grandparents. Surely she should be screaming or crying or...or doing anything but sitting there, feeling like she was caught in someone else's nightmare.

"Everythin' I know's hearsay," he cautioned her. "It might not be completely-"

"I need to know, Iry. I just don't understand how it could happen."

He cleared his throat. "Ain't much to tell. You already know the first bit – Marie runnin' off in the middle of a snowstorm because she couldn't marry Laurie Ivan, your dad goin' after her...the whole pod findin' out. As you can imagine, there was chaos the next day. Lots of anger."

"Alwyn?"

"'Course. He was livid – all his plans upset, his precious seer refusin' to look into the future-"

"Mom?" she said in disbelief. "We're still talking about my mother?"

His eyes were very gentle. "She's changed a lot, Marie. Was a time when she was too busy with the present to give a damn about the future."

Phi couldn't imagine it.

"Marie had Alwyn over a barrel, an' both of 'em knew it. The Pack was causin' trouble an' had been since Aurora died, so he needed to know what was comin' more than ever. He had to agree. But mark me, he wasn't happy."

"He was behind it all, then."

"Yeah, Alwyn was the drivin' force. But he wasn't alone, an' he was clever about it. Ain't no one can prove he had anythin' to do with it – but we all know."

My own great-grandfather. Oh god.

All she had known was collapsing. The foundations of her life had melted away at the slightest touch, as if forged from lies and cobwebs.

"How...how did it happen?"

There was pity in his eyes when he looked at her, and it stung. "He was clever, Alwyn – him an' those who helped him. They didn't act at once, nah, they waited. It seemed like everythin' was settlin' down. And then the pod went down to the lake one mornin', an' found your grandparents there. All four of 'em, floatin' in the water. Drowned. Someone had held 'em down 'til even a dolphin didn't have any choice but to breathe water. An' surprise, surprise, Alwyn had a cast-iron alibi."

From his mind, she caught an image: the lake in winter, a sheet of grey, and people crowded round its edge. Someone wailed, and she saw a woman turn away from the crowd, her face unmistakable even with the decades wiped from it – her mother on her knees in the gravel, a cloud of brown hair pulled ragged between her hands, screaming at the sky.

No more, please, no more...

The scene vanished.

"I didn't mean you to see that," he said gruffly. "Sorry. It's just...they were my friends too. An' I sometimes wonder if I could'a done anythin', if I missed somethin' that might'a saved 'em..."

"I've never seen her cry," she mumbled. The image of her mother was etched into her eyelids. "She's always so calm...I didn't know. Why didn't they tell me?"

She didn't expect an answer, but still it came. "Because they were scared. Lots of people blamed 'em. Weren't their fault – Alwyn was waitin' for an excuse, waitin' to shed some blood, 'course he was. He hated disobedience, an' he needed to control everyone. But he wasn't willin' to dirty his hands, so he found someone else to do that."

Phi stared at him, her eyes hard as flint. "Who do you think it was? You must have some idea."

He hesitated.

"Please. I need to know. I need names. They were my family, and someone in the pod betrayed them."

"These are guesses, Delphine. Nothin' more. I'm an outsider-"

"So what?"

Surely he could see this was nothing to do with genetics – she couldn't let it lie, live not knowing, looking at the faces of the pod and wondering just who it had been. And if they would kill her as easily because she wanted more than this.

"You know more than I do right now. Please tell me."

His head turned fractionally; to the painting over his mantelpiece and the girl who was a livid ghost of herself.

"They're all gone now, " he said shortly. "All of 'em except one. Laurie Ivan. He was crazy about your mother – always said he didn't need her to tell him his future 'cause it had her in it. Stupid really: if he'd asked, if she'd looked, it might'a avoided a lot of heartache later. There ain't nothin' as bitter as love turned to hate, an' with that much love...that's gotta be a lot of hate."

"Why didn't anyone do anything about him?"

"No proof. An' they didn't want to think it was him." Iry shrugged. "He was your dad's best friend. Dan was the dreamer an' Laurie was the doer. An' your mother felt somethin' for him, even if it wasn't the kind of all-or-nothin' love he felt for her. After, they pitied him 'cause he'd lost her. They didn't want to believe he did it."

"Then why do you?"

His lips skinned back, baring a savage grimace, and Phi flinched, unnerved by the rage that shook his voice and gleamed in his eyes.

"I was cheated of the girl I loved too, an' if I met him who took her now, I'd rip out his damn throat without stoppin' to think about it. Love denied is violent, an' it devours you. It will murder, an' it will torment, an' it can't forgive...it never ends. It has no mercy."

She didn't dare look away from those bestial eyes. It was a predator shining out from his face, something dreadful and denied, and she was afraid that if such hate were as indiscriminate as he thought, the slightest trace of submission might provoke him.

And then he bowed his head, only a man again, full of regret.

"Remember that," he said quietly. "Watch out for it."

Dumb, she nodded, and tottered from the chair to the door as fast as she could.

X - X - X - X - X

When the sunlight hit her, she felt like Orpheus stepping from hell, bereft, shaken. The sheer normality of it all – Jo and Riose chatting by the gate, heat bristling on her skin, birdsong somewhere distant – seemed out of place.

"Phi?" Jo, concern grazing her words. "You okay?"

How could she be?

But somehow, she dredged up a waxen smile. "Later, please. I just want to get home."

Is this what the pod did too? she wondered as they left the big bad wolf far behind. Played happy families and waited for it to end, enduring, turning a blind eye whatever the horror? Alwyn built the cage, but they walked in. They might have been afraid, but they did nothing.

And while they waited, while they feared, Aurora died. My grandparents died. My mother will die for them, because they cannot face what the future might bring. They can't even face the past.

They've spent their whole lives just getting by, telling themselves it would all be over soon.

She couldn't turn a blind eye. She wouldn't.

And she knew where that thought led her. Her parents had no power to break the contract that they had made on her behalf, and there was no way in hell she could break it. Not knowing that she would sacrifice them. Yet nor would she be made Don Ivan's pawn.

That left one option.

"Riose?"

He glanced over, giving her a small, quizzical smile.

"I need to talk to you later."

X - X - X - X - X

Avy was angry: Zeke could see it from the moment he stumbled into the throne room, feel it crackling along the sorcerous bond that held him.

A glance at Don Ivan's smirk told him why.

The magical fetters hauled him down until he was prostrate, forehead pressed to the cold stone floor. The humiliation was nothing new, but he still resented it bitterly.

_So you return. Perhaps you can explain to me why you spent your night fighting Poseidon's allies? Why you freed a valuable prisoner?_

"I was following your orders," he mumbled against the stone, his back starting to ache from the pressure she kept on him. "You wanted me to get close to Delphine Thetis – to win her trust. What better way? No one was harmed-"

"Tell that to the wolf with the broken leg," Don cut in.

_A few casualties are to be expected._ Her voice was thoughtful. _Well, Zeke, I had not suspected you had a mind for such intrigues._

The weight on his spine eased, and he knelt up gingerly. He knew better than to get to his feet when Avy was in a mood like this; she was mollified, but not yet convinced.

"You can't live in the court of the Soulless King without picking up a few tricks."

And he had not spent a lifetime with Avarice ap Sangager, watching her manipulate people with deft and heartless guile without learning that the best way to disguise his intentions was with a veil of truth.

_How true. Kindness will fool the naïve just as cruelty will alienate them._

If it was a shot at Don Ivan, he didn't notice. "None of which alters the fact that I had Phi in my grasp – I could have made her agree to anything, anything you wanted, and instead this idiot let her run back to tell tales about me and the wolves!"

"Your carelessness is not my problem," Zeke dared to say. He could show no weakness here, not with Avy's judgement looming over him like a guillotine. "But you're mistaken if you think she would have fallen at your feet. Those wolves had to give her a beating before they dumped her in that cesspit. She was a mess when I got there. It was my understanding that she was supposed to be biddable, not broken."

_You are correct._ Avy's blind eyes turned to Don._ I have little patience for such ham-handed incompetence, Poseidon. Each time you mistreat Delphine, you give her another reason to hate you – and ultimately, we need her cooperation, just as we need the influence she brings._

Don's face was a masterpiece of barely suppressed anger.

She turned her attention back to him; Zeke waited for her reprimand, sure some punishment would come.

But when she spoke, her voice was mellow and wry. _You have done well. You have gone a long way towards winning her trust._

Zeke only stared, dumbstruck. The cycle of duty and pain had been so constant he'd forgotten there had ever been another life; when she had been a glorious seductress, full of charm and laughter and secrets, glowing like a star in the Soulless Court - and he had been the only one she trusted.

Then the years crashed back into her words and she was old again, the ancient on her pitted throne.

_But do not think that one success means I will forget your insolence, or what happened last time I gave you a taste of freedom. I can no longer trust you, Zeke...and I don't think you would play me false, but I would be a fool to give you the chance. Come here._

The command was accompanied by power, hooking around his neck and forcing him forward. He had to crawl to her feet. Her nails, yellowing, brittle, dug into his chin as she yanked his face up. This wasn't going to be pleasant.

He felt the flow of magic, wrapping around him like chains. The air was clammy and saturated with power, her free hand rolling a clutch of horns in her fingers.

_By the bond between us, by the magic that binds us, you will reveal nothing of our plans to Delphine Thetis or anyone else,_ Avy commanded, and the spell sank into him, a trap waiting to be sprung. _Not by word or thought or deed. And should you break this agreement, may your heart tear in its cage and your skin rip from your bones and your blood become thorns in your veins._

Two of the horns dissolved into dust as she ended the spell. She was serious, no doubt about it: she had to be to expend so much of her precious store of magic.

Her mouth gaped in a mirthless smile, baring her greying gums. _Not by word or thought or deed._

He had seen this vow used before, long ago, and seen too the consequences of it, twitching in agonised heaps upon the ground. It had been a sport for a time, binding people with impossible promises, and watching as they failed: don't breathe. Stare at the sun without blinking. Bring me a handful of moonbeams by nightfall.

And his own promise seemed just as impossible.

X - X - X - X - X

Irked by his encounter with the old hag and her loathsome slave, Don Ivan trudged home.

A heavy, still hush shrouded the house. So it was one of the bad nights. No surprise there – he'd been expecting it after the relative calm of the last fortnight.

He passed by the living room, a glance enough to confirm his father was slumped in his chair, a half-empty bottle of whisky on the table beside him. Laurence Ivan grunted a greeting, one that he didn't bother to answer.

His mother was just where he'd known she would be: sat at the vanity table in that peach silk dressing gown that she always wore. Her loose chignon and straight back were the picture of elegance. The bruise she was powdering over was not.

"Again?" he said. "What set him off this time?"

"Me, I'm afraid." Her voice was cool and controlled.

"You shouldn't provoke him."

"No? Should I just let him drink himself into a stupor, then?"

"Why not?" he countered. "At least he'll be the one waking up with a headache."

It was an old argument, one they'd played out ever since he was old enough to understand that other fathers didn't hit their wives. The vocabulary was a little more sophisticated, to be sure, and so was his understanding of it all, but they still trod this battleground in tired tandem.

She patted down a strand of hair, the same bright blond as his own. "It's not the headache I object to. It's the heartache." Her laugh was silvery, and yet so bitter. "Twenty years, sweetheart, and even though I'm the one who got the ring, she got the man. I thought he'd get over her, but it isn't me he's trying to drown in the bottom of that bloody glass."

"No," he pointed out levelly. "But it's you who gets in the way of his fists."

"At least he sees me then. I have to live with being outshone by her in public. Precious Marie, the prophetess who loves us all so much she'll die for us." Her voice was tart and mocking. "But you will have to forgive me if I refuse to be outshone in private – not even by her, but by the memory of the girl she was twenty years ago! God only knows why I put up with it!"

She snapped the compact shut and it felt like his heart jumping hard, afraid suddenly.

"You still love him, don't you?" he asked, unsure.

She must have seen something in his face that made her turn, softening. "Of course I do. Don't look so worried, sweetheart. It's a little tiff, that's all. Just because your father can drive me up the wall doesn't mean he could ever drive me out of the house."

Yet she hesitated, her eyes dark and vulnerable.

"It's just hard to know he'll never love me like that," she said, and he saw her swallow. "Don't make my mistake. Don't love too much. It only hurts."

Moved, he went forward to brush a kiss on the bruised cheek she offered. So many of the pod knew her as distant, but she was his mother and he still remembered the stories she used to tell him as a child, the cookies she had baked, the way she'd wipe mud from his face with a cloth and a little amused sigh.

"You're twice the woman she is," he swore. "And she could never outshine you – she's just a rattling bag of bones who can't even get out of bed. You're Mrs Ivan, and you'll be the mother of the next pod leader. What's she got? An ugly death and a family she's torn to shreds because she didn't love Daniel Thetis enough to live for him."

"There is that," she acknowledged. "Now let me finish my make up, sweetheart. I've got dinner with the girls in fifteen minutes and I want to look my best."

X - X - X - X - X

They left her at the door, but Phi knew both had picked up on her mood. Jo gave her a rough hug, and murmured something about lunch tomorrow; even that much kindness almost overwhelmed her. As long as everyone pretended things were normal, she could cope.

Her father was waiting for her, unusually pale. At the sight of him, everything Iry had told her seemed to solidify and become real, and she wanted to flee so she wouldn't have to have this conversation.

How long he had held hs peace. How strong he'd had to be for them all.

"I..." He cleared his throat. "I'm so sorry, baby."

"Dad..." she said helplessly. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He spread trembling hands. "I didn't want it hanging over you. We couldn't forget, but if you didn't know...baby..."

Something in his tone frightened her. It was so lost, so despairing. She'd never heard him sound like that, not even when they first realised her mother wouldn't get better.

"Dad-" she began, but he spoke again, his voice rough.

"I still miss them, you know. You don't ever get over it." And then he put his head in his hands, and to her dismay, she saw his shoulders shaking.

Her father was sitting at their kitchen table crying, and she didn't know what to do.

For a moment she wanted to weep too, an urge so violent that her hands shook with it. Her father had spent so many years being strong for their family, trying to mend all the rifts of the past, trying to make something better – all for her and her mother. All for them.

But he needed her to be strong.

"It's not your fault," Phi said, the half-lie tripping off her tongue uneasily.

A muffled, gravelly laugh. He lifted his head, wiping at his eyes. Strange how the grief peeled away the years from his face, so she had a glimpse of that boy her father once was. "I'm afraid it is. And I just keep making the same mistake. I swore I'd never let our pod be divided again...and here I am. Doing to my own daughter what Alwyn did to me. I've been an idiot, Phi."

"Dad..." she implored, frightened by the bleak words.

"I thought it was for the best. I thought you and Don were on the way to love, I thought I could mend the rift with Laurie, I thought...oh, a hundred things. And the one thing I never thought was to ask you what you wanted. I'm sorry, baby. I got it wrong."

"Isn't there any way to break the contract?"

He closed his eyes; without animation, he looked old and weary, a man waiting for the end days. "No. That's why Laurie insisted. He knew we couldn't risk it happening again. No one wanted that."

Except maybe him, she thought, Iry's voice echoing in her head with an oracle's cool accuracy.

_Love denied is violent, and it has no mercy._

Nor do the Furies.

And all her hopes of salvation were distilled down to them, and a desperate throw of the dice.

"I'm sorry," he said, tears rough in his voice.

She nodded, feeling like she had aged decades within her skin. "Me too."

X - X - X - X - X

Don went back to the lounge in a thoughtful mood. He sat down in the chair opposite his father, noting that the glass was already almost empty, that Laurence Ivan's eyes were glazed. Neither of them said a word about the bruises, a conspiracy of silence that had lasted years already and could endure many more.

When his father reached to pour another glass, Don almost missed his words, soft and slurred. "How did it go?"

"Well enough, I suppose," he answered. "You were right – she punished him, though I thought he was going to sweet-talk her out of it at first."

His father's voice was dead, detached. It always was when he spoke of Avarice, as if he had amputated the memories of his own boyhood meetings with her. "Never. She has no compassion left in her." He paused, then came the familiar question. "She didn't ask anything of you? Offered you nothing?"

"Nothing," he said swiftly. He hadn't mentioned the new powers she'd given him, knowing his father would be furious, but the reminder of them gave him a twinge of unease.

"Good. All her gifts are poisoned."

Don had never dared ask, but now, emboldened by the knowledge of just how close he was to succeeding where his father had failed, he spoke up. "What did she do to you?"

The words hung there, spinning like spiders dangling from their webs, and his father's hand clenched around the glass.

He took a long draught; and another, and another, and then the glass was empty, and perhaps he'd burned away his fear because the face he raised to Don was terrible, contorted in rage and pain.

"I always knew you'd ask," he said in a thick, funny voice. "And I thought, when he does, I'll have to tell him. 'Cause he's bold, my son, and he's reckless, and if he's anything like his father, he'll think he's smart enough to outwit that old witch on her stone throne. He needs to know that he isn't, and he needs to know that she'll give you whatever you want, but she'll ask her price, and you'll pay until the day you die. You'll pay in your dreams and you'll pay in your memories and you'll never forget her. That's her price, you see. She wants to be beautiful again, but if she can't be beautiful, she'll take being feared. As long as she's remembered."

His expression was awful, but Don was riveted.

"I went to her, like you did, and she promised me the same things. She'd give me Marie and the pod if I'd give her Ryar's bones and horns and all their healing power. Seemed fair to me, so we struck our deal. I thought it'd be easy. I didn't want anyone hurt – Dan was like my brother. But he was too soft to lead us, and we needed a strong leader. I wasn't a Thetis, so I wasn't suitable and I didn't know how to persuade people. But she did, Avarice.

"She'd been sat in that pit for years with her powers, listening to everything that happened in the valley. She knew all their secrets and all their desires, who to talk to and what to say. I listened to her and did as she said. Bit by bit, they came round. Some of the elders started to question Alwyn's choice of Dan as the heir. Then more people. I could see that Alwyn was starting to look at me differently. That's why he betrothed me to Marie, why he started to ask me about the important issues. It was going perfectly."

His father paused, and his mouth twisted in a bitter grin. His face seemed skeletal, his eyes too bright.

"But all the while, Marie was falling for my best friend. And then that night came. She left me for him – she left me! I went to Avarice, stumbling through the snow, half-frozen. I thought she'd know how to help me. But she just told me that now I was guaranteed the pod if I just played this right. She didn't seem to understand that Marie was everything."

"What happened?"

His lips drew back in a sneer. "She told me to let them break the blood-oath. Let them be the traitors, not me – that I'd win every heart in the pod with one act of mercy." A strange, rippling moan slipped from his mouth. "But not the heart I wanted. Not hers!"

No need to ask whose heart he meant. Don despised Marie Thetis for making his father this, almost as much as he loved his father for fighting on despite it all.

"Avarice didn't understand – she couldn't, but I didn't see that it would make much difference to our plans. I asked her for power – to scare off some of the Pack, I told her, but in truth, I needed it to overcome Dan's father. He was a formidable man. She granted me it, but on the condition that I would use it only for protection. It _was_ protection, what I did. It was!"

Don agreed. But he suspected Avarice wouldn't.

"I didn't realise then how many of the pod Dan had infected with his pacifism. Alwyn gave me permission to punish them, and I made sure that the Laveaus and the Thetises learned not to break blood-oath."

Vicious satisfaction rung in his voice, burned in his zealous eyes. At moments like this, his father seemed most alive, flushed with justified anger and a pride that Don respected. His father, the strong one, willing to do what others would not dare for the good of his people.

"But the pod were weak. They didn't see it as justice – they forgave them. I was the one who'd been abandoned, but they treated Dan and Marie as if they hadn't brought the entire mess on themselves. Alwyn saw how it was going, and he made Dan his heir to keep the rest of them happy. I think he even admired him a bit, you know, for having the balls to defy him." He snorted. "He'd spin in his grave if he knew how pathetic we've become."

"Avarice," prompted Don.

"I went back to her after it was done. She was...furious." All the emotion was pared from his voice, leaving it flat, but his face was gaunt and eerie, full of shadows. "I had lied to her, she said. I'd been beguiled by a pretty face. I had to understand that all women were the same in the dark, and she would teach me the lesson so I would never be fooled again."

His body spasmed, as if in memory of some old horror. His voice fell to a hoarse whisper. "The things that happened in that cave...that she made me do...there in the darkness, what she made me do while she wore Marie's face..."

Aghast, Don could only stare at his father, shuddering with the intensity of it. He looked sick, a man dispossessed of hope or comfort.

Shaking, Laurence Ivan reached for the bottle, and as he drank and drank and drank, Don felt the sinister shape of what his father tried so hard to sear from his mind. But the feeling that rose in him in response was a surprise: not pity, not compassion – but contempt that his father, who he had always held in such esteem, could have ruined his chance of glory so completely and so foolishly.

And as he thought of his own poisoned gift, he was more determined that he would succeed. The price of failure was all too clear.

X - X - X - X - X

Riose met her outside the school, which seemed a hollow shell without students bustling about the campus. She was perched on the low wall by the doors, hands tangling nervously. It was no surprise that he was late, but it didn't do anything for her nerves. He came slouching up the road as if he had all the time in the world to play with. In a way, he did.

He stopped just short of her, hands in his pockets, saying nothing, giving away nothing.

"You know what this is about," she said, gazing up at him. It felt oddly official: this was not her friend, but an agent of the Furies, and a deadly creature in his own right.

"I can guess. You should know this is dangerous, Phi. They can break blood-oath, but their methods may drive you to madness or suicide."

Madness didn't seem much of a threat compared the last few days, which wouldn't have been out-of-place in a lunatic's hallucinations. And she had known from the moment Riose mentioned it that it would be dangerous. Of course it would be.

It didn't take away the fear, but nothing would.

She decided, and somehow the finality of it all strengthened her. There would be no more uncertainty: just her and them.

She met his eyes dead on. "It's the lesser of two evils."

He grimaced. "I doubt it somehow. But if this is really what you want-"

"It is."

He continued, regret soaking his voice. "-then you need to persuade the heads of the Furies. All three of them."

The Grieving Fury, the Viper Fury, and the Demon Fury. If they refused her...would she even return?

But the alternative was worse. It made her half-smile: not even the Nightworld's foremost mercenaries could match the thought of decades bending to Don Ivan's will, his concubine, his toy doll, his catspaw.

"I'm positive." She took a deep breath. "I want to meet them."

He searched her face, his eyes questing and intense. Whatever he found didn't satisfy him. "Will you tell me what you found out about the pod that made you choose the Furies?"

"Eventually, I guess." When she had learned to cope with it, When she could bear to unravel their thorough, careful web of lies. "But not now. Just...understand that it was enough."

Riose gave her a curt nod, slipping back into formality. "I'll see it's done."

"Thank you," she said.

"Don't thank me. I've done you no favour."

It had begun. Now there was no backing down: no way but forward.

Forward to escape, she thought grimly. She would not be another of the pod's fatalities, she would not be a victim beneath their blind eyes, brought down by apathy. She wanted her freedom - and she had a fight on her hands.

One she had to win.

_I miss those days and I miss those ways  
When I got lost in fantasies  
In a cartoon land of mysteries  
In a place you won't grow old  
In a place you won't feel cold..._

X - X - X - X - X


	12. Chapter Twelve

Hot, fresh and on time :) Many, many thanks to you wonderful people who commented on the last part - thank you to the gorgeous **girltype**, the quixotic **Queen of Slayers**, the brilliant **Bex Drake** (We'll see ;) Evil either way, though!), the yummy **yukatalamia** and the most excellent **Elentiriel**. May chocolate and kittens shower down on you!

I'd love to hear what you think - any thoughts, comments or criticisms you have are very much welcome.

Lyrics come from Sting's _Shape of My Heart._

**Ripples Part Twelve**

_He deals the cards as a meditation  
And those he plays never suspect  
He doesn't play for the money he wins  
He doesn't play for respect._

This was his guilty secret: sweat trickling down his back as he stared at the phone. So often when he spoke about the Furies, he was flippant and cool. Inside, he was always anything but. He had not entirely escaped – obligation tied him to them still, and now he was entwining himself with them once again.

And worse, taking a friend with him.

Riose began with Nightfire, because he anticipated the endless warfare of conversation with Blue Malefici; barbs, concessions, danger.

So when the phone was answered, and that aloof, precise voice said, "Orage," he was steeling himself.

"I need-" he began, and got no further.

"I assume this is about Delphine Thetis, and that pesky blood-oath she wants to get rid of."

Thrown, he stammered out, "It...it is."

"The answer is yes. I'll even offer my home as the meeting place." Amusement crept into his voice. "The Furies haven't heard a request like this in a hundred years, and haven't ever agreed to one. Let's see if your mermaid can make history."

"What do you get out of it?" he asked.

"Entertainment, of course," Blue said, and put down the phone.

X - X - X - X - X

Next came the Grieving Fury. He half-expected her to treat him with formality – he'd heard she kept the two aspects of her life separate, as he himself had tried to do, but Chatoya Irkil exchanged small talk and pleasantries before she gently prompted him. "I assume this isn't a social call."

"No. I'm calling on behalf of a friend."

"The same friend I healed at The Chill? Delphine Thetis?"

"Yeah."

"The same friend who has Aspen digging through the archives to find out about blood-oath?"

"Uh...yes."

She sighed. "I can guess why you're calling. She wants to meet us."

"As soon as possible. Blue's offered his house." He paused then added, "I think he's looking forward to it."

"I'm sure he is." She sounded grim. "All right, Riose. I'll hear her out. If I was going to be married to Poseidon Ivan, I'd probably do the same, especially after what he did to her."

This was new. "What did he do?"

Silence. "Nothing pleasant, Riose," she said. "I didn't realise you didn't know."

"Phi never told me."

"And you didn't look at her file?"

"She's my friend!" he snapped, indignant.

Her laugh was soft and startled. "What a cynic I've become. But not so cynical that I won't hear her out. I can't promise I'll help her, Riose, but I'll listen to what she has to say, and I'll judge her fairly."

"That's more than enough," he assured her.

"Sometimes I wonder," she said, and she too hung up, leaving him feeling hopeful.

X - X - X - X - X

He left Therese until last, knowing she would not accept anything less than his presence. Their relationship was a strange one, dual-sided as a coin. On the one side was his sister, always teasing him, pushing him, guiding him where she thought it necessary. On the other sat the Viper Fury, imperious, complex and contrary. And dangerous. Very dangerous. She moved from one to the other with terpsichorean swiftness, so he was never sure where he stood with her.

It was the Viper Fury who let him in, scorn gleaming in her black eyes, a meaningless smile on her lips.

"Sit down," she said, fitting deed to words. "It's been a while."

"You were busy," he pointed out, hearing the accusation.

She tilted her head. "Never too busy for family, even little brothers who don't call."

He bared his fangs at her, as he had when he was a kid and loved to try and scare her with his ferocious faces. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"So you are. But - call me a cynic - I don't think it's a social visit. What brings you to my door?"

"Delphine Thetis," he answered.

Her eyes narrowed. "The pod girl. What does she want with the Furies? Or has someone finally told her the truth about her parents?"

Another puzzling allusion. He was almost beginning to wish he had read Phi's file. But he couldn't profess ignorance in front of Therese, so he feigned indifference.

"That old story? No. She wants to break a blood-oath her family made."

Interest sparked in her face. "Does she indeed. Do all your friends want to be human, Riose?"

She would see it that way. "She doesn't want to be human. She just doesn't want to marry Don Ivan."

"Hmm. She's thinking with her heart and not her head then," Therese remarked. "If she put her mind to it, she could make him her puppet, an ego like his. Still, I can't fault her courage." Her eyes fixed him, intense. "Or yours."

"What do you mean?" he said cautiously.

"It's about time you stopped toying with that girl, don't you think? Celia Slone, that's her name. Not hard to find out, Riose." Throaty, slow, she let the implicit threat dangle. "You don't feed from her, you treat her like an equal, and you let her know about us. People have begun to wonder whether she should be alive."

Heat rushed up his body, mixed with the chill of fear. "She's just a friend."

"She's human, little brother. They weren't made to survive our world."

"I know," Riose answered, meeting her eyes – so dark, much older than her years. And gentler than they used to be. "You've told me often enough. I got the message a long time ago."

"And chose to ignore it," she commented. There was no anger there, only a kind of weariness. "She will break, you know, one way or another – and you'll have only yourself to blame. Hope she forgives you, because I doubt you'll ever be able to forgive yourself."

He doubted she realised that bitterness laced her voice, faint, but discernible to one who knew her so well.

There had been a human boy years ago who had intrigued his sister. She had hunted him and played with him, as was her way, and then something had happened between them – something that had left scars on her, invisible, deep, wrenching. She never talked about him, nor was it easy to define exactly how she had changed – Riose could only say that she lived her life as if in the boy's shadow, which stretched long and black across time, thrown by whatever sunset he'd vanished in.

Was that why she spoke of forgiveness? Were they so alike, still searching, still hoping?

"I'll protect her," he said, only hearing the insult – _as you did not_ – when it was too late, when the words were splattered across the air.

But her mouth merely drooped into a sad curl. "If you mean that, Riose, leave her be. It will spare you both, I promise."

"Why do you care?" he demanded, truculent. "She's nothing to do with you."

"She's someone you love," she said, her voice neutral. "And I may not like it but...I do understand."

Riose stared, astonished by the confession. "Do you?" he blurted.

Her feline smile held mockery. "Perhaps I too know something of love, even if it is only for a little brother who doesn't know any better. But be careful, Riose. You're not as tough as that arrogant brat who got himself admitted to Nightfire all those years ago."

"I don't think that's a bad thing."

"You wouldn't." She surveyed him and then said, "Ask me what you came here to ask."

"Will you help Phi?"

"Yes. But tell your siren she had better sing for her life. Nothing less will do."

All emotion was gone from her. He had no doubt she meant it.

The question escaped before he could catch himself. "What about Celia?"

"She's your concern. I have no interest in her, but I can't speak for others."

He opened his mouth – and she cut him off with a single glance.

"Go away, Riose. You have what you wanted. Go back to your life – and try not to ruin it."

X - X - X - X - X

Phi walked down to the lake that night as she had every night before. It was her bolthole, her sanctuary. Yet now, coming to it on the wings of Iry's revelation, it took a new and sinister light that made her stomach turn to think of it.

She could find no peace. The old funeral rite echoed bitterly in her mind now that she knew just what the waters brought back to her on the foam of every wave.

Why was she even here? There were no answers, only all these old, hidden truths circling with the relentless patience of vultures.

And then she felt his presence, and understood exactly why she had come.

"I didn't know if you'd come back," Phi said, and the truth flowered inside her like an orchid, vibrant, new, astonishing.

But she had hoped.

X - X - X - X - X

Zeke stepped from the shadows. "Neither did I."

"Were you here then, too?" she asked. Her voice was low and quiet but held an edge of wariness, as if she was expecting an answer she didn't want to hear. "Did you know?"

"Know what?"

Her tone eased. "About my grandparents."

"Did...something happen to them?"

Whether it was laughter or gasp, the noise she made was outraged. "You could say that. The pod drowned them because my parents didn't do what they were supposed to." She shuddered violently. "They held them under the water and when they were dead, they left the bodies floating there like they were...debris. Like they didn't matter."

He was an intruder, more truly than he had been when she was just a voice around which he wrapped his dreams, layer on layer.

"I'll leave you alone," he said uneasily.

She whipped around, her eyes dark, imploring, one hand stretched out to him. Her voice was throaty, striking him hard.

"Don't go!"

In those two words, he heard an echo of all those requiems that she had poured forth to the night sky.

"I don't want to be alone here," she said quietly. "It's the only place where I can be...me. No one needs me to be strong or to pretend not be scared. I don't have to be the dutiful daughter, or pretend I don't care what the pod say behind my back."

"I'm sorry," Zeke whispered, knowing it was inadequate. It couldn't erase the cruelty of what she had learned or ease her grief.

"Sorry," she said, the word acid on the air. "I've heard that a lot. They're all so sorry about what happened. But here it is, happening again. Another blood-oath made to be broken. Another girl drawn to the boy with fire in his eyes."

His world went quite still, quite silent. "Me?"

"You," she said. "My friends think you're dangerous. They're probably right. But I don't think you're a danger to me."

He opened his mouth to tell her the truth – and felt the first knot of pain, furled beneath his ribs as Avy's vow took hold. He changed his warning to a neutral, "Why not?"

"Don't you know?"

Zeke could only look at her blankly. "Know what?"

"I thought about it. Why you came to listen to me every night. Why I kept coming back here - why I came tonight. And it seems so obvious now."

"What does?"

Phi blinked. "You really don't know, do you?" she said with something close to amusement. "You're my soulmate."

X - X - X - X - X

"What are they doing?" Finn elbowed him. "I can't make out anything."

"Just talking, I think," reported Riose from the reassuringly thick undergrowth. Part of him knew that this was underhanded, and that Phi would murder the pair of them if she had any idea they were watching her.

"Huh. Bet that won't last." The witch squinted out in the darkness. "Are they lying down? Oh my god! Is she-"

"That's a tree, Finn," he sighed. "They're over there."

"Over where?"

He silently cursed his friend's complete lack of night vision. "Never mind. Just believe me when I say nothing nefarious is going on."

"Good. I don't trust that guy."

Riose refrained from pointing out that Finn didn't trust anyone with a Y chromosome who showed the faintest trace of interest in his female friends. Besides, he agreed. Whatever this Zeke was, power wafted from him like smoke, a constant low-level presence. "Keep it down. If she hears us, we're dead meat."

"Sorry." The lull didn't last. "You think he's really her soulmate?"

He hesitated. He'd mulled over it, discussed it with Jo while they waited outside Iry's house, and something she'd said had stayed with him.

"He's dangerous," she'd agreed with a little nod. "But so what? We all are. And when I walked in...there was this atmosphere between them. Something happened."

"But what?" he'd said idly.

Her eyes narrowed, and then she said slowly, "Intimacy of a kind that scares the hell out of me, darling. The way they looked at each other, no one and nothing else existed in the world. It was empty except for him and her and whatever they saw in each other. And Phi wasn't the slightest bit afraid."

Now, as Riose watched this girl, this friend who was still so unafraid, he answered, "I think so."

Finn swore. "Then he'd better not hurt her."

"Not on our watch."

A hand pinched his neck so hard he had to muffle a yelp.

Oh, no.

"Your watch is officially over," said a grim voice that he knew far too well.

"Boys, boys," came the amused chiding of Jo from where she was sat on a groaning Finn's back. "I thought we might find you here."

It was Celia causing him severe pain and equally severe regret at getting caught. "I knew you weren't going to drop this stupid idea," she hissed in his ear. "I've seen that look on your face a million times."

"Acute agony?" The soft smell of her was maddening, spicy and exotic as Scherezade. It brought his predatory urges rising to the surface and he stamped down on them firmly.

"No, your road to hell look."

"My what now?"

"It's the one where you're thinking 'it's for the best' even when you know the rest of us would disagree," Jo explained helpfully.

"Acute agony comes later, when you've done the stupid deed and been caught," Celia added, digging her nails into his skin to drive the point home. "Phi does not need you two lumps to look after her."

Finn managed to raise his head from the dirt to say, "She's snuggling up to the supernatural equivalent of lighter fluid. I'd say she really does."

"Really?" demanded Celia, her voice a harsh hiss. "You think you have the right to make those decisions for her? Then what makes you so different from her parents, idiot? What makes you any different from Don Ivan? You can't live her life for her. You can't keep her safe. And there's no way in hell you can know her own heart better than she does."

When Celia let go of him, Riose turned to face her with an apology stuttering on his lips, but the grimness of her face, the pale shards of her glittering eyes made him reconsider. She was too angry to take it as anything but an affront.

Finn, however, had not gleaned such wisdom. "It isn't her heart that bothers me. It's his. What does she know about him?"

"More than you or I, darling, if he is her soulmate." Jo might have let him up but she looked like she was seriously considering squishing him again. "Let it be."

"But-"

She grabbed his hair and twisted. Finn winced.

"It wasn't a suggestion," Jo purred.

He ceded at last, muttering, "I just don't want her hurt."

She sighed, and her fingers tangled in his hair briefly, tender, comforting. "None of us do. But it's her choice."

Celia had lost her ire, but her face was no less bleak and when she spoke, her words had the clarity of a diviner parting time to glimpse the future. "You've seen what happens when you only live for other people, Finn. You've seen her mother."

That shut him up as nothing else could. "All right," he said gruffly. "Let's get out of here."

X - X - X - X - X

Phi had expected a multitude of reactions. Disbelief had not been on the list.

"That's not possible."

"Why not?"

"How can I have a soulmate?" he demanded. "I was made, not born."

"So were the mer," she said levelly. "Do you think Ryar would have made anything soulless?"

A sudden smile sprang to his mouth, and she was surprised by how glad she was to catch a glimpse of the boy who'd flirted with her at the lake. "She wouldn't know how. And it would explain a lot." He paused, and his face took on a soft, tentative quality. "I guess after so long, I just assumed I'd always be alone. It's hard to believe...a soulmate...you...me...us, you know?"

Yes. If it were true, there was an 'us', a shapeless entity composed of words and touches and emotions, some twisting, churning lightning thing that held the promise of joy and grief in equal measure.

She might love him. She might loathe him. And either way, she was scared.

But she held out her hand, ignoring the butterflies that swept around her stomach. Somehow she even managed to sound flippant. "Well, there's an easy way to find out."

As they stood there, fire and water, she realised just how much she wanted it to be so – to know that she was not alone, had never truly been alone in all those nights when the waters absorbed her tears and her voice, that he had been waiting as she had; hoping, yearning, not understanding that the gap in her heart was shaped to fit him. It subsumed her fear, it kept her steadfast in the silent night.

And then he took her hand-

She was awash in sensation, gasping, astonished. Knowing it was true was no substitute for this – for warm white light that dazzled her like a desert sun, and then...

Him. She could put no better word to it than that. She was two, bisected: she was the girl stood at the water's edge gripping his hand so tight that the pain impinged – barely - on the edge of this place, and she was elsewhere, surrounded by everything he was. Beside a silver sea which might have been water and might have been fire, she stared at him, and was amazed.

He blazed in this other place, free from his human form. It was a shell, she realised, an empty shape that could only throw out a feeble echo of what he truly was.

His hair was a pale gold that she thought shifted in unseen winds before she realised it was fire; his skin glowed with the deep heat of metal in a forge, and invisible but no less vast, she felt his power. It had the force of an apocalyptic inferno, held back solely by his choice – his control – and only then did she understand how little she had grasped of his strength.

He could have blasted her to ash with a touch. He could burn her up inch by precious inch, and turn the lake to steam, the trees to charcoal at the same instant without needing to think about it. She knew now why they had named him angel, djinni, devil.

He'd said he was fire and she had thought it was a metaphor. It wasn't.

Now she understood.

Fear rose in her – and then she looked into his eyes, and saw they were unchanged, and utterly open to her.

"I won't hurt you," he said, and she knew it for a vow, fierce, intent. "I promise."

He could not lie – not here, not to her.

After the last few days, she expected to be cynical and aloof, to bar her heart against any more pain. And yet she found herself half-smiling, feeling as if she had something true to pit against the disappointment and the lies.

"I believe you," she said.

She let go of his hand. The connection broke and he was just a boy again, with fire and wonder simmering in his eyes.

"You really are my soulmate, aren't you?" he breathed.

No, not just a boy. Not now.

"Yes," she said, and left that other word unspoken, a small, bright ache filling that gap in her heart which had waited for him so long and so patiently.

_Mine._

X - X - X - X - X

The silence existed between them like a pool then as they sat by the lake, quiet, not entirely comfortable but not hostile: merely waiting. He wanted to look at his hands, to see if the imprint of her glowed on them like a brand; he wondered if she knew what she looked like in that other place, if she knew what she looked like in this one.

Zeke wanted to touch her again, to feel her presence like a boundless sea of grey and turquoise and dark, swirling blue, meeting him and matching him in some way that he couldn't define.

"What happens now?" he said.

"Now?" Her hair ruffled in the breeze, and they were close enough that strands brushed his cheek and shoulder. It was a dreadful distraction, but a welcome one.

"Now we know."

"What do you want to happen?"

It was a guarded question, and for all that he knew she was his soulmate, he had not ventured into the depths of her soul, and he wouldn't until he was invited. Those were her secrets to keep.

And what of his secrets? _Not by word or thought or deed._

He met her eyes, turned to thunderclouds by the night sky, churning, turbulent, fierce. And beautiful, as he had always thought of her and not known it.

"I want to come back tomorrow and see you again," he said, linking his hands around his legs so she wouldn't see them shake. "And the day after that, and the day after that. I want to have all the conversations we would have had if I hadn't been too shy to talk to you. Well. The conversations that don't involve calling me a pervert or a stalker, that is."

She inclined her head, a coy half-smile on her mouth. "I guess that depends how many times you saw me naked."

"Just the once. And I didn't mean to. Not that it wasn't, you know, a nice sight..."

"Nice?"

The arch curl in her voice released tension he hadn't realised he felt. They were playing again, as they had been when they were two strangers by the lake. "Obviously when I say nice, I mean amazing."

"Damn right you do."

He grinned, made bold. "So will you meet me again?"

"I think I might," she agreed, but under the flippancy there was a weight to the words that thrilled him. "Provided you promise not do anything to besmirch my reputation."

"Are you sure you want me to promise that?"

Her eyes were smoky and unreadable, but her voice had a note of laughter. "For now. Until I know you better."

He held up a hand like a Boy Scout swearing an oath. "No besmirching without your express permission, until you know me better."

"Good enough." She leaned forward, and for the first time he caught a glimpse of hunger in her eyes, an echo of his own desire in the space she stole between them. "Tell me something about you I don't know."

"But...that's everything," he pointed out.

Her eyes danced. "Zeke, I'm getting to know you better."

Oh. "What do you want to know?"

"Anything. Something...no one else knows."

He hesitated, not because he didn't know what to tell her but because it was hard to break a lifetime of silence. The only opinion hehad been required to hold was whatever Avy ordered.

The first word was a release and every one after was saturated with guilty pleasure.

"I'm scared of spiders," he confessed.

"What? Really?"

She was smiling, and he couldn't help but smile back because it was so stupid. "Really. It's something about the way they move – their legs, they just scuttle. I used to incinerate them, back in dragon times, but then one day I flashfried a spider that turned out to be a courtier sneaking away from an affair. Now I don't dare in case I wind up with another naked man rolling around on my floor."

"Let me get this straight. You're a big fiery demon, and you're unmanned by bitty things with eight legs."

"Some of them are not bitty!" he said indignantly. "And have you seen how many eyes they have? It's like there's dozen of tiny minds watching you."

She snorted and it turned into full-blown chortling. "That…that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard."

"Well, let's hear something better then, Miss Congeniality," he challenged. "Tell me something about you I don't know."

She fell silent, and he could see she was making a decision. At last, she said in a voice soft as the whisper of breaking waves, "The first song I ever heard was 'Beyond The Sea'. I could sing along to it before I learned to talk properly. My dad used to play it to me every night. He won't play it anymore."

Sadness twisted her mouth, and she seemed reduced, curled in like a flower against the frost.

Meaning to comfort, he reached for her, just to brush the back of her hand, but she reached for him too and suddenly their fingers twisted together, and she was clutching him so tight her nails bit into his skin. The soulmate link whirred into life, and he caught her sorrow, and with it, a welter of fragmented thoughts: two people dancing in a warm room, massive to a child's eyes...it was a sad song, really, a love song – and he didn't play it because of someone...

She let go and Zeke thought she would vanish into the night, the brief, dizzying intimacy too much. She was poised for flight, muscles tense as if all that held her was her stare searching his face.

"I'm scared too," he said softly. It was true. What lay before them was immense, an intimacy that knew no impediment and no end. It was entirely possible to lose your own identity beneath the onslaught of a soulmate link if you were not strong enough. He had seen it happen: it was not some benign force of destiny - it was an urge primal and violent, spawning hatred as easily as love, terror as easily as wonder. To surrender to it required tremendous hope.

He had thought all his hope lost; he had been wrong. It had burst forth like the genie from the lamp, laying forth wishes and dreams.

She gave no answer – but then he felt her fingers, fumbling for his.

And into the darkness, Phi whispered, "Tell me something about you I don't know."

Everything, he thought as he unravelled his heart in front of her, a boy and girl holding hands by the lake. Everything for you.

_I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier  
I know that the clubs are weapons of war  
I know that diamonds make money for this art  
But that's not the shape of my heart_

X - X - X - X - X


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Not only on time, but actually early! I feel quite proud. Many, many thanks to you most lovely and awesome of people who reviewed last time round - thank you to **Bex Drake**, **Anterrabae**, **CalliopeMused** (hope the exams went well!), **yukatalamia**, **girltype**, **Queen of Slayers**, **Lethe**, and the splendiferous **Shelli**.

I adore hearing your thoughts - criticism much welcome: in the words of Ani di Franco, I'm a work in progress. Any comments, questions, crits very much enjoyed! The lyrics belong to The Cure with _Something More Than This_.

Hope you enjoy!  
- Ki

**Ripples Part Thirteen**

_Make believe in magic, make believe in dreams  
Make believe impossible; nothing as it seems  
To see, touch, taste, smell, hear  
But never know if it's real_

Phi got out of bed the next day with something to look forward to.

Her mind was out by the lake, beside the boy with fire in his eyes.

She smiled at herself in the mirror, feeling ridiculously light and happy and full of hope.

X - X - X - X - X

Don Ivan was woken by pain. It sheared right through his body, fingers to feet, and he could do nothing but curl up around it, snarling into his pillow. Ragged breath in, even that small motion hurt.

It felt like cramp, like every muscle in his body had seized up in spiteful unity. His fingers were hooked into claws, his calves locked into rigid bars. Maybe it was a heart attack. Meningitis. Maybe-

And then, between stabs of pain, he knew.

Three days, the hag had said. The drug had worn off, and he'd forgotten to go back.

If it was a drug, maybe he could wait it out. Part of him tried not to remember her saying _I'd recommend you come here before the cramps start, or you may not make it back_.

Shuddering, sweat beading on his shoulders and neck, he waited for the pain to stop.

X - X - X - X - X

When she saw her mother, Phi felt her heart sink. Adrift in the bed, she was thin and grey and small against the deliberately bright hues of the bedroom. Her wedding ring seemed to weigh down her bony fingers, its winking gold all the colour Marie Thetis had left.

"Your breakfast is getting cold," pointed out Phi.

Her mother gave her a faint smile. "I'm not that hungry. You look very pretty today, sweetheart."

"Do I?" She accepted the change of subject. Easier, that, than the alternative. "Must have inherited it from you."

For some reason, that wiped the smile clean off her face. "You've grown up so much in the last couple of years. You'll be an adult soon."

"Not that soon! I'm only sixteen, Mum." She didn't understand the sadness in her mother's eyes. "Too young to do…anything."

Even that subtle hint was too much. Her face hardened. "Like get married?"

"Exactly like that," she said, nervous.

"Do you think we did this to make your life difficult?" her mother demanded. "I've seen it, Phi. I didn't just do it for the good of the pod – if I hadn't supported the blood-oath-"

"You supported it?" It was the most tremendous betrayal she could imagine. "How could you? After last time?"

She knew the words were unwise the instant they passed her lips. Her mother's face was terrible, her eyes blazing with a cold light that seemed the only life in her withered body.

"Do not question my motives. Everything I have done – everything – has been for the good of the pod, and for your own happiness. Do you think I would do anything to hurt you? I gave birth to you. I have spent my life working to give you the best of all futures – and believe me, Delphine, I know exactly which future that is."

"Really?" she challenged, reckless. Having gone so far already, she had nothing to lose. "I thought you couldn't see everything."

For the first time in weeks, a flush streaked her mother's cheeks like warpaint. "Do I need to see every minute of your life? This will take you to happiness. If you marry Don, the pod will have another Golden Age. You'll have children who adore you – two of them, you'll end the feud between the wolves and us, you'll be everything I could possibly have hoped for." Her voice cracked. "Can you blame me for wanting that?"

"But it isn't what I want. I won't be happy with him. I don't even like him."

"You won't be the first to marry someone you didn't like." The hardness of her words was barely softened by her soothing tone. "But time will cure that. You will come to love him, Phi. Ask Jess. She didn't want your godfather either, but that changed."

"So have the times. I don't want to love someone because I've got no other option. That's…that's _awful_." Phi searched for the right words, the ones that would make her mother see. "How can you say that to me? You didn't marry Laurie. Are you telling me that you'd have given up all of this if you had the choice? Dad, me, all of it?"

Her mother didn't flinch; all her gentleness vanished. "If I had known, I would have learned to love Laurie and forgotten your father."

"How can you say that?" she whispered, reeling.

"Don't look at me like that. You'd say the same if you had gone to the lake that morning, if you had seen…"

"I might think it," she said, lost. She hardly knew the hard-eyed woman in the bed. "But I don't think I would have said it. Not even to the daughter you clearly regret so much."

She couldn't stay any longer. If her mother called after her, she didn't hear it.

X - X - X - X - X

The pain was getting worse. His vision was blurred and greying, and breathing was difficult around the knots in his chest. He slipped into brief, hallucinogenic dreams. Cartoon creatures, shapeless things with great triangular teeth and multitudes of eyes chased him through the woods. He twisted and turned, body bent into strained shapes.

Rough shaking rousted him from the nightmares. "Don. Son! What's wrong?"

It was his father. He'd be so angry when he found out. "Avy. Took…took something from her."

A great stillness existed between them, and then Laurence Ivan said huskily, "What?"

"Drink. Dragon horn. Made me…strong." His whole body jolted into convulsions. He couldn't stop – he was pain and rattling bones and fear, he was dying surely…hands clutching him, a litany of his name in a panicked voice…

It stopped. Desperate, he searched for the blur of his father and found it. "Need more. Need to go back. Take me, please."

There was no answer. He knew it was a difficult request – to ask his father to return to the cave that haunted him so, but he was his son, he had to help, he had to…

"Please!"

Still no answer. Then he felt hands sliding under him, gentle as when he'd been a child and demanded to be slung on his father's shoulders, and Laurence Ivan lifted him as if he weighed nothing. There was no sound except his breath, quick and jagged and frightened as Don's own.

Safe, trusting his father, he slid back into the voracious grasp of nightmare and pain.

X - X - X - X - X

After that, Phi needed comfort. The kind of comfort you could only get from people who understood the sheer maddening ways of parents and the constricting traditions of the Nightworld.

Most kids grew out of treehouses at a young age. Her friends had been no different. Unfortunately, they'd grown out of treehouses and into trees.

The old oak was out on the very edges of the wood, and so vast and obviously unnatural that only a witch could have grown it. Its sprawling branches were perfect for five or six people to sit on, and so she found her friends. Finn was nervous as ever and clinging to his branch for dear life; Jo and Riose were quite comfortable and Celia reclined in pride of place at the junction of all the myriad boughs.

Their chorus of greetings startled a sparrow into flight. She waved up at them, and their grins were a welcome antidote.

She scrambled up next to Finn, who gave her a sleepy grin. "What time do you call this?"

"Sorry. I had an argument with Mom," she said glumly.

"About the wedding?" Celia said, her face understanding.

"Of course. She won't back down. You know what? She even supported the Ivans when they suggested blood-oath."

Indignant exclamations filled the air.

"Yeah," she said. "She'd seen it. My perfect future shacked up with Don. Two kids, apparently."

"Oh, hell no!" Finn yelped. "That means you'd have to sleep with him at least twice! Where's the life where you and I are living in sin and raising a brood of ginger arsonists?"

His silliness made her laugh. "I don't think Mom would consider that a perfect future."

"And she's quite right," Jo declared, "any future which involves bringing more ginger children into the world is clearly a vision of anarchy."

"Hey!" Finn objected, stroking his hair protectively. He gestured at Phi. "You're closest. Push her out of the tree. Show her the wrath of a ginger warrior."

"So she won't back down?" Riose said quietly, ignoring the banter. Phi knew his question was motivated by more than friendship.

"Of course not," she sighed. "You know my mother. It took a year before she'd let any of you in the house." She glanced at Finn. "And she's still not sure about you."

"For the last time, I didn't mean to set the curtains alight," he said patiently. "It just happened. It's hard being a growing boy, you know. Normal people get mood swings. I got spontaneous combustion."

"Speaking of firebugs…" Jo said, far too casually, "have you seen yours lately?"

Suddenly four pair of very interested eyes were on her, and she couldn't stop the smile on her face. "Yes."

"Ooh, you look like the cat that got the cream," Celia remarked.

Jo's eyes glittered. "Something tasty, at any rate."

She couldn't fault their almost psychic ability to know when something was going on. "I was, um, at the lake last night."

"And what, um, happened that put the smile on your face?" Jo said slyly.

A blush scorched her cheeks. "I met him."

Finn was scowling. That was nothing new. "Your stalker?"

"My soulmate," she corrected.

There was a small shocked silence, then a barrage of questions assaulted her.

"Darling, so he is, then! Did you get up to no good?"

"What was it like?"

"Did you find out what he is?"

"You understand that doesn't make it any less creepy, right?"

She ignored the last question, which was of course Finn. "Ri, he's an elemental. Fireblade made him. And would I tell you if I had, Jo?" To Celia, who looked eager for every detail she said, "It was…amazing. I don't really know how to describe it. It was…scary and huge and fantastic all at once."

"Scary?" echoed her human friend, frowning.

"Yeah. Every time I touch him, it's there, this pull, and I could get so close to him that we wouldn't be two people anymore, you know? We'd just be one. There'd be no difference between my thoughts and his, nothing he wouldn't know, no privacy or mystery or anything but each other every minute of every day."

Jo grimaced. "Not my cup of tea."

"Mine either," she confessed. "He's my soulmate, but he's still a stranger. I don't want him to be a stranger."

"Pity," muttered Finn, loud enough for them all to hear. She gave him a pinch, and he glared back.

"Then what do you want?" Riose said, his eyes piercing.

She struggled for clarity. "I want to get to know him. I want to know if I like him enough for it to be more than…than…than some guy I happen to share this random connection with. If he's going to know all my secrets, I need to know he's the sort of person I can trust with them."

He nodded. "Sounds like a good idea. You said Fireblade made him?"

"He said…" His words came back to her. "He was a gift for a woman. A slave."

Finn's eyes were very blue, and a little peevish. "Could be a sob story."

"It's easy to check," Riose said thoughtfully. "Someone, somewhere will know."

She had a feeling she knew who the someone might be. From her disturbed expression, Celia did too. But…but part of her demanded confirmation – was afraid that it would be a lie or a trick. Most of all, she feared that Don was somehow involved. It wouldn't be the first time.

"Do your parents know?" For all her languid poise, there was nothing idle in Jo's question.

"No," she said simply. The rest she kept to herself, but couldn't help wondering: would it change things? But it always came back to her mother's words, back to _if I had known, I would have learned to love Laurie and forgotten your father. _

They didn't ask, but she knew that eventually she would tell them everything. For now, it was too raw, too astounding for her, but when it became real, she would need them all more than ever. They were her family, after all, just as much as her father and her mother, who regretted her.

X - X - X - X - X

World seesawing, distorted, the sky lurching. Roaring lions, biting him; jaws on his arms, his legs, everywhere. He was being eaten alive, but he was still screaming and shouting, or was that only in his head?

Darkness above and below, all bumping, sounds of monsters in the dark – wheezing, wailing, thundering things…

Cold liquid that spread through his body and then sweet, sudden relief.

X - X - X - X - X

Don came to in her throne room, refreshed as if he had slept for a hundred years and woken hungry for the world. He felt invincible again, rented power coursing through his veins, but now he knew it for a lie.

Hands helped him up. His father was wan, eyes dark and distressed. "I warned you," he said heavily.

"I know," he replied. "I thought-"

"You were wrong."

_Recovered?_ Avy's voice was sugary-sweet. _Perhaps you will listen to me now, Poseidon. Be glad your father is a wiser man._

Laurence Ivan wouldn't look at her. "Not wise enough to protect my son."

_Still bitter, then. Did I not help you, Laurence? Did I not lay the pod at your feet?_

"It wasn't the pod I wanted."

_That was not what you said when you came to me. But then, you thought you already had Marie, didn't you?_

The name brought life back to him; he raised his head and said slowly, "I did have her. She was taken from me."

_Was it theft? I thought it mere love._

"Don't play your games with me. I am done with them."

_I am not playing games, Laurence. I am offering a trade, as I did all those years ago. I will give you what you want in exchange for your help with what I want._

"You have my son." The glance he flicked at Don was accusatory. "You don't need me. And you can offer me nothing I want."

_Not even a dying woman's last hours? _A curious grinding sound reached them: the horns scraped between her fingers. _Marie Thetis will be dead within a month, my word upon it. Help me, and I will give you the last of her life._

"The dregs, is that it?" he said, hostility pouring from him.

_If she was an ordinary woman, perhaps. But she is a seer and in their dying moments, they are granted one last vision. It is the only time they can see their own future, you know. She will be able to step back to any point in her life and see what would have happened if she had chosen differently. Tell me, Laurence, which point do you think Marie Thetis would choose?_

His father's face twisted, and Don saw that he had been wrong to think him broken, useless. The ambition burned just as keenly in him; the goal was different, that was all. He had always known that his father did not love his mother as he did Marie Thetis. He had not known that the love was more than mere ash.

Triumph softened Avy's voice, mimicking compassion. _And wouldn't you want to hear what she has to say?_

So his mother had been right, Don realised. She had been the second choice – she still was the second choice.

He didn't doubt his father's love for him, for what else could have persuaded him to come back to this heartless cavern knowing what might wait there for him? Yet it made him uneasy, a little afraid, to think that his family was not the secure triad he had thought; his mother was the outsider, passive, waiting for love that would never come.

He pitied her. Yet it never occurred to him to despise his father for it.

"What do you want?" Laurence Ivan said in a low voice.

_A trifle,_ she said, and as her words unfolded, Don Ivan began to understand – and to respect – the immensity of the plan she laid before them, and the riches she would bring them.

It was worth the price, he thought as his eyes lingered on the empty cup and the droplets beading its rim. In the next two weeks, as he followed her instructions to the letter, as he drank down her elixirs again and again, the thought repeated, and became conviction.

No matter her price, it was worth it. It must be for his father to pay it twice.

X - X - X - X - X

After that discussion, Phi found that life fell into a pattern while she waited for Riose to come back to her with a date to meet the Furies. It wouldn't be soon, he warned her: they would not set aside their high games for one bothered shapeshifter. Weeks, maybe even months.

She avoided the pod except for Jess and her parents. Even seeing one of them in the street made her wonder if they had known about her grandparents…if they would do the same again.

Her friends wrapped her up in gossip and idle amusement. Jo told them coyly about a certain boy she had in mind, and fed them developments. Riose was quieter, his smiles rare and fleeting while Finn grumbled constantly about anything that came to mind. Celia scolded and chivvied, but Phi caught the anxious looks she sometimes gave Riose.

The days peeled off like petals from a rose, and they were all uncertain what lay at the end.

Her conversations with her mother reached polite stalemate. They did not discuss her marriage: Marie Thetis seemed to think it forgotten and Phi didn't trouble to correct her. She was still picking at her food and had grown thin and hollow as a reed. Worry soon replaced any anger Phi felt.

As for her father…he was working harder than ever and at home he spent most of free time with her mother, trying to coax food into her. Often they spoke in low, intimate voices, and every time laughter blossomed on the air, Phi felt relief sluice through her. If they were laughing, it couldn't be that bad.

Sometimes they all sat together and chatted about old family holidays, the pod, anything past or current. Never the future. After all, her mother already knew it.

Phi was afraid that she and her father did too, but she pushed back the fear. Her mother had been this ill before and recovered. That didn't make it any better each time it happened, but it gave her hope. She needed it badly.

And chasing hope, every night she left the house after her parents had gone to bed, and made her way down to the lake.

It felt like chains slipping off with the first lungful of warm night air. Against the confines of her mother's room, the sky seemed limitless, the careless spray of stars bright counterpoint to the pills lined up in neat bottles on the bedside table. The pale moon glowed above it all, freed from her nest of clouds while Marie Thetis endured the long confinement in her bed.

It was all that her home was not: wild, promising, alive.

Phi didn't walk down to the lake anymore – she ran, wind snatching at her hair. The minutes mattered suddenly. He mattered.

He was always there, sitting on the springy patch of ground that they had deemed their own. Every night, she watched for the look on his face when he saw her, and every night she was not disappointed when he got to his feet, delight on his face: the boy with the fever-bright eyes, burning for her.

X - X - X - X - X

It had been awkward the second evening, last night's confessions between them. But then he'd given her a shy and enchanted smile and said only, "I didn't know if you'd come back."

"And miss your spider stories?"

Zeke's sigh broke the tension. "I'm going to regret telling you that, aren't I?"

She grinned, seating herself, and patted the ground beside her. "Oh, I don't know. It was kind of charming. Once you got past the crazy."

"Fear of spiders is not crazy," he argued, settling down.

"No. But fear of spiders because 'it's like there's hundreds of tiny minds watching you' is."

He mock-scowled. There was a respectable gap between them, and part of her felt tempted to close it – to lean into that gentle curve between his neck and collarbone. She didn't though: it was too intimate. "And I suppose you aren't afraid of anything?"

"Could be," she said nonchalantly. "Of course, you could always ask, and find out."

He leaned in, one arm stretching behind her back but not touching her. His breath tingled on her ear, and his voice was husky and teasing. "If you insist. So, Delphine Thetis…"

And all her nights were poised and perfect upon the simple request:

"Tell me something about you I don't know."

X - X - X - X - X

And so night after night, she learned and was learned: not knowing what he might choose to tell her, only sure that it was true.

"The first sound I remember was the ocean," he told her. "Fireblade made me there – forged me, I suppose – because he wanted to be able to destroy me if I went wrong. I came from the fire spitting sparks, not knowing anything except how hungry I was and how afraid, and then I heard the waves crashing."

He paused, his face wistful.

"I thought it was someone's heart beating, like mine. It was cool and dark and peaceful, everything I wasn't, and it seemed like heaven." Zeke sighed, but his eyes gleamed with humour. "And then of course Fireblade opened his mouth and spent the next three hours spouting triumphal, self-glorifying tripe about how amazing he was and how he'd made me in his own image. He turned out to be wrong about that one, thank god, because the thought makes me die a little bit inside every time I think it."

X - X - X - X - X

"I can speak six languages," he said one evening.

"Six! I can get by in Spanish, and that's it."

"Two of them are dead," he pointed out. "And the other four have changed. But I needed to know them. I travelled a lot. Inevitable, really, if you happen to live in the court of the Soulless King when he's having a world-conquering week."

"Say something in one of them," she entreated.

He looked a little embarrassed, but then he said something soft and liquid and low that sent pleasant goosebumps rippling over her skin. When he finished his eyes were full of heat, and she felt breathless.

"What did it mean?"

"Just an old poem," he said elusively. "It was quite famous for a while."

She'd never seen a poem that could put that sort of look on anyone's face. "Tell me," she beseeched him. "Please."

"There are songs which are beautiful and songs which are true, and they are just music. Then there are songs which are both, and they are the beginning of wonder."

She smiled. "That's lovely." Then a thought struck. "That's a very short translation."

His gaze slid away.

"Is there more?"

"I don't know how to translate it," he said in what was an obvious and appalling lie. Curious, she touched his cheek before he could think to stop her – and felt the heat there, echoing that which had simmered in his eyes.

"What does it mean?" she persisted.

Exposed, he looked slightly panicky. "Not tonight. I need time to think about it."

Unsatisfied at this half-victory, she said, "But you will tell me?"

"Eventually. Just not now."

Seeping through his skin to her fingers, came a chasing, secret thought - escaping him unnoticed, she was sure. It woke a warm, restless glow in her.

_Not yet._

X - X - X - X - X

Thursday rolled in like a hearse. She fled the house that night because the healer had come, bringing the whiff of futility with her. But even here she could not drive her mother from her mind. The image lingered: her hands shaking feebly, calling out for people who couldn't answer until she was drugged into sleep.

"Tell me something about you I don't know," he said quietly.

She swallowed hard. There were other things she could tell him, but this one was omnipresent, a ghost laid over everything she did.

"My mother…" She stumbled, not because she didn't want him to hear, but because she didn't want to say it. "My mother is dying."

It didn't matter that her mother regretted her birth then, it only mattered that she was not getting better, that she would never dance in the living room with her father again.

"What am I going to do without her?" she whispered. "How do you live without your mother?"

"Phi…" he said helplessly, huskily, and the compassion in his eyes undid her.

Quietly, because she didn't want to fuss, because she had already cried these tears a dozen times before, she drew up her knees and let her forehead rest on them.

He put a gentle arm around her, and she leaned into his shoulder. "What am I going to do?" she asked him, and Zeke offered her no answer. He only stroked her hair while she stared out at nothing, a song that her father refused to play echoing dimly in her head.

X - X - X - X - X

"…and then," he said dryly, "Fireblade burst in naked, waving his namesake – well, both his namesakes, I suppose, if the rumour in the court was anything to go by - screaming that someone had violated his wife and there would be hell to pay. When he saw Ryar sitting there, I'm not sure who was more surprised. Apparently Ulryat had needed an excuse to wage war on the Eastern Lands, and that was what she came up with."

It was the next night, and they sat facing one another, Phi shaking with laughter. She had been afraid that he would be wary of her, or that she would be embarrassed by her outburst, but he'd been waiting as usual, and the warmth in his eyes had quelled all her fears.

"Your stories have a lot of naked people in them."

"Product of the times. They didn't see human skin as different from fur or scales, and at that point, nudity was very much _de rigueur_ in the court. It was a seriously unfortunate time to spend most of your life kneeling in submission."

"How so?"

"Imagine what was at your eye-level."

She covered her mouth to hide a grin. "Ouch."

"Exactly. But then Bhari arrived and brought Eastern fashion with her, and every slave in the court blessed her for it. We didn't bless her for much else, but for fashion...yep, she might have sold out her own people to Kheo, but she sold out to Prada first."

X - X - X - X - X

Slowly, Phi grew comfortable with him, and as the nights passed, she found herself wanting to laze in the circle of his arms, as she might with Finn or Riose - but with other, wilder thoughts filling her mind. Thoughts of his mouth, curving in a certain way, of how he said her name, of the heat of his skin.

She didn't speak these thoughts or venture any further into the link that bound them. In truth, she was a little afraid. It seemed to good to be true, too wonderful that he should be here, now; already she felt she hovered like an eagle in the high vault of the sky, that some immense, dizzying fall lay before her, and she was not sure if she had the courage for it.

And yet every day she was bolder. It became quite thoughtless to leave her hand in his, to send him a thought, an image, a query on the wings of a touch. She knew the cadence of his words, she mocked him and teased him, she was honest and true and herself.

She was waiting, though she didn't know what for.

X - X - X - X - X

He was lying flat on his back, gazing up at the sky, mulling over an answer while she waited impatiently.

That night, he had been quiet for a very long time but finally he said, "The most beautiful place I ever saw was the palace of clouds. The royal family of the forestlands lived there and it was right at the very heights of the rainforest, so that every morning it appeared out of the mists as if someone had dreamed it."

She slid onto her side, watching the rise and fall of his chest. His eyes were closed, and he looked utterly peaceful.

"They'd grown it from the forest so that it lived still – it was full of sunlight and never silent, this huge series of rooms connected by bridges. You could always hear the rain on the leaves in the afternoon or the waterfalls running through the rooms. There were no guards or weapons, and every morning, someone sung up the sun."

The wonder in his voice made her ache.

"What happened to it?" she whispered.

He opened his eyes and they were shadowy, far away from her. "Kheo tore down the palace and enslaved the people. There was no one left to lure the sun back to its halls, and so it fell into ruin. But even in another country, the slaves still sang every morning, because they said that it was all that kept darkness from the world."

"Do you think they were right?"

"I wasn't sure." His gaze focused on her, steady, fire rising in it, and his voice was raw and marvelling. "And then I heard you, and it seemed entirely possible that one voice could call back the sun."

She was amazed, her breath stolen, and then she stammered out, "Me?"

How solemn he was. "There's no one else."

Yes, she thought, feeling the truth of it ring up and down her bones. There was no one else in this night, only him, only the space between them shrinking and shrinking…

His lips on hers were tentative, tender. The thrill of attraction she felt was a shock – and then she knew what she'd been waiting for. She was almost savage in response, heated as he was hesitant, and his gasp, his answering smile curving against her mouth felt like victory.

And she knew what it was to be fire, to burn in his arms.

When at last air eased between them, he looked dazed. He held her like she might shatter in his arms.

"Tell me-" he murmured, and she silenced him with a finger on his lips. Even that mere touch was electric. She had never felt more alive.

"What was the rest of the poem?" Phi asked, sure, heart racing, all her world shrunk down to now.

His fingers slid through her hair, reverent. "Some women are beautiful, and some women are true, and they are just women," he answered. "And there are women who are both, and they are still just women."

His eyes were bright, afire, as if the sun had set in them – and she the voice who had called it back.

"Then there is you," he said softly. "The beginning of wonder."

When he kissed her again, for one sweet moment she saw herself as he did. How her hair tumbled about her, how candid and unwavering her gaze was; a certain wild way she had of throwing back her head in laughter.

She was astonishing, a light in his shadowed world.

"Tell me…" he began.

"No," she whispered. "Show me."

It was with unsteady hands that he drew her down beside him. He sang in her blood, in her bones, in the flush of her skin where his kisses fell and in those moments, against all the cruelty of the world, she was no longer alone.

Then there is you, she thought. The beginning of wonder.

_For this second of your life  
Tell me if it's true  
Anywhere beyond is all I want of you  
In your lips lies a secret  
The promise of a kiss  
Or something more than this_

X - X - X - X - X


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Spywar abounds on this rubbish internet cafe PC: I shall be brief. Many thanks to the lovely, delightful, wonderful people who commened last time round. Thank you **Kichiko, yukatalamia, Enigmatic Piscean, Lethe**, **timeless**, **chocolatetree**, **enchantednight84 **and **Elentiriel.**

I adore hearing what you think - I can hack criticism, so fire away, and anything you have to say is very much welcome!

Lyrics come from Tom McRae's _You Only Disappear_.

Hope you enjoy!  
Ki

**Ripples Part Fourteen**

_I can live with my regrets  
Just to raise a smile, just to raise my head  
But a stranger god can be so cruel;  
But a holy fool is still a fool_

Those days were bliss when Phi thought about them later; between and elsewhere days, full of potential and blushing heat. Her mind idled out by the lake, full of starry skies and him. Such times should perhaps have been ominous, swollen with gloom, but she had lived her life in the shadow of prophecy, and so – free – she thrived upon the uncertainty.

But like all things, it ended.

The moment she heard her father calling that Riose had come to see her, she knew. It twisted in her heart like a knot of barbed wire as she went downstairs; her peace was gone, one way or another.

Riose knew it too. It was the way he held himself, very tall and straight, as if he were a prison guard come to escort her to the electric chair.

Hopefully, that was a long way from the truth.

X - X - X - X - X

There had to be a way. If there was one thing Zeke was sure of, it was that: there was some way to keep Phi from the pod and Avy. He had been born in a world where the impossible was commonplace – why shouldn't he make it so again?

He had searched the vow Avy made him swear, seeking some loophole. Simple as it was, he could find none. And then it occurred to him that perhaps he did not need one – he needed only to endure the pain long enough.

The day then, found him labouring over a piece of paper in the only place where he ever found anything close to privacy. Aurora's headstone gleamed almost white in the slanting sun; he was far more focused on the words that formed slowly.

_This is the truth. For years I watched you, not knowing who you were. You were a voice in darkness, the most beautiful thing in my world. Finding you, I did not think the reality could ever live up to the dream. I was wrong. And I have li- _

His hand cramped – he gasped, and forced himself to form the 'e'...

The pen skidded across the page and he was clutching his arm, which felt as if his bones splintering in his skin. Wait for it to pass, wait and try again...

But it didn't pass. The more he willed the pain to stop, the stronger it grew until he was snarling against it, until he knew that it was hopeless, that it would never stop-

And just as abruptly, it was gone. He was left panting for breath, and bemused.

Cautious now, he picked up the pen with nothing more than a twinge in his fingers, then began again.

X - X - X - X - X

As they passed her mother's door, ajar as always, she spotted them. "Is that you, Riose Orage? Are you going to say hello to an old woman?"

He stepped in with a little grin. If he was shocked at her mother's decline, he didn't show it all – instead, he went over to kiss her cheek. "You're not old, Mrs Thetis. You can't be, you're younger than my mom, and she cuts off my allowance every time I hint she's getting decrepit."

The rustiness of her mother's laugh was painful to hear. "How is Kim?"

"She's got a new man." Riose sounded slightly grumpy. "She keeps trying to tell me all about him."

"Not interested, eh?" she said fondly. "Well, I would be, so tell her to give me a call! Now we don't have the bridge nights anymore, I miss all the news. And mind you behave yourself in Delphine's room," her mother added with a flare of parental protectiveness.

"Mo-om," she groaned. Still, it was progress. Three years ago the boys hadn't even been allowed in the house because they weren't pod and therefore weren't trustworthy.

"I always do," Riose reassured her. "Finn's the one who misbehaves."

Marie Thetis raised her eyes heavenwards. "Yes, I recall my curtains vanishing in a ball of fire that would have made Jerry Lee Lewis ecstatic. Go on with you then, and don't forget to tell your mother!"

She sounded oddly wistful.

How lonely she must be, thought Phi with new, painful understanding. The pod only visited when they wanted their future read, and they always treated her with reverence, almost…almost as if they were afraid of her - as if she was already a martyr to their cause.

"Why don't you have a bridge night here?" she suggested. "Dad could bring up the picnic table, and you could invite Mrs Orage and Mr Farrier round."

Her mother's face lit up. "Do you think they'd come?"

"Of course they would," she said fiercely, swallowing down a lump in her throat. "They'd love to see you."

"Definitely," Riose added. "I know my mom still keeps Thursday nights free, just in case."

The sweet, hopeful smile on her mother's face wiped away some of the lines that pain had left. "Then we'd better find something for her to do, hadn't we?"

Phi found herself blinking away hot, unexpected tears as they left her mother planning the great bridge party.

When they got into her room, Riose took one look, pushed the door to and then wrapped her up in a gentle hug until she felt less shaky.

"I didn't think about it," she confessed into his shoulder. "I didn't realize how alone she is."

"I didn't either. I know my mom's wanted to come and see her, but she wasn't sure if she should."

If she had, wondered Phi, would they be in this state? Or would have her mother have talked about the marriage with the Farriers and Mrs Orage, and Mrs Slone? She didn't know, but she thought that they would have fought her corner.

"So," she said, pulling herself together, "you'd better tell me why you're here."

"You know."

"They've set a date."

She saw that his bottom lip was ragged, as if he'd gnawed it. "This afternoon. Three hours, Phi. Listen, I can't go in with you, I can't tell you what to say, but I know them all. You can't go in emotional or you'll make yourself just another victim to them. Be organized. Make your case. You have to be calm and logical - and bold."

"Bold?"

He half-smiled, but he was tense as a tightrope. "Not many people dare to be. My sister will like you for it and the Grieving Fury will respect you for it."

"And the Demon Fury?" The name tasted odd, fairytale-foreign on her tongue.

He hesitated. "He won't like you or respect you for it. But he might let you live. Show him a trace of fear though, and he'll crack you right open and exploit every secret you thought you had. He's always been cruel, but for some reason, he's become worse in the last few years. Fear is just a goad to him."

"He let you leave."

"No. He let me leave on condition, so I haven't really left at all. I owe him a death." His eyes were haunted and vulnerable. "And I don't know who, but I'm afraid I can guess. I've made a terrible mistake, Phi."

"What could you possibly have done?" she said uncertainly.

She would never forget the look on his face because it was a mirror of her mother's when she spoke of her past, and the choice she so regretted. Although his voice was quiet, it was full of dread.

"I learned to love. He won't excuse that."

X - X - X - X - X

Sweat poured off Zeke as he struggled to write. The pen shook miserably, the letters barely readable. Each was more malformed than the last.

And then he saw a reddish splotch on the paper. He stared. Another. The unmistakable scent of blood.

He turned his hand, disbelieving. Blisters were bursting on his hand in their dozens, and suddenly he couldn't hold the pen – even the air hurt his skin, everything hurt from his fingertips to his shoulder, - it wouldn't stop, it wouldn't go away and for the first time in his life, Zeke knew the pain of fire.

Awful, all-consuming, it spread over his back, and he arched away from the ground, barely lucid, before he blacked out.

When he came round, aching and grim with the knowledge that he would have to find some other way, nothing remained but a small, shiny mark on the ball of his thumb. He stared at it, this reminder of what he had learned: even he, who was fire, could be burned.

X - X - X - X - X

Calm. Logical. Organised.

It was good advice, she had no doubt, and though apprehension underlay all her thoughts, she felt surprisingly calm and clear-headed. At last her life was back in her own hands: she would be judged on the merit of words, and passed or failed.

Like an exam or a class paper. And then she knew what to do.

Notepad, pens, reason. She wrote the question: why should the Furies help me to break blood-oath and to avoid my marriage?

It was no different from any other question she'd ever been set. She could have been comparing Shakespeare to Jonson, picking holes in the European Declaration of Human Rights, arguing for war or against nuclear power.

Just as if it were an essay and she forming an argument, she began to make notes, to write, to order her thoughts, and then to siphon the emotion from them. She clarified, she edited, she took her own heart and shaped it into oratory and saw in it a truth that was just as powerful and passionate stripped of its emotion as it had been when clad in her anger and her self-pity and all her outrage.

It kept her busy. It kept her together. She needed both.

X - X - X - X - X

"This is no joke," Don answered the wolf who'd spoken up with such unabashed cynicism. "It needs to be done."

He gauged their responses. Most were thoughtful; some were eager. One or two were anxious – those, he noted carefully. He could afford no wavering.

"By us," Susie sneered. "So we take the blame for it."

"Who will blame you?" he asked levelly. "The one is entirely natural, and the other…a tragedy, of course, but half of them expect it already and the other half will be won round. It is necessary."

"Killing the pod leader?" This was a new speaker, one of the nervous ones. Don marked him carefully – thin, blond, guarded. "Why? You're betrothed to the daughter, aren't you? If you get her, the pod's yours."

"The pod is mine when Daniel Thetis dies," Don corrected. "Which is likely to be at a ripe old age. The last leader was ninety-three. I don't intend to wait fifty years to get my hands on the pod."

"All right, but why not the seer?" the boy asked. "She's just as powerful."

"And she's half-dead already. It won't take much to push her to the end – a few more readings, and I can convince enough people to ask for those."

"The pod's never been without a seer." That was one of the older ones. "Never. Why's that going to change?"

Don mentally counted to ten. "Because the first vision every seer has is their heir. When Marie Thetis was born Helga Arryn was all over her like a rash. That woman grew up knowing the instant that Helga died all the power would pass to her. But Marie Thetis has seen no one. She is the last."

"Who's to say she's telling the truth?" demanded Susie.

"No one in the pod has shown any signs of a seer," he said with exaggerated patience. "No extraordinary hunches. No dreams. No amazing coincidences, no unbelievable luck. They all rely on Marie Thetis to tell them the future. It's time they relied on someone else. Me."

"And you'd make us reliant on you too," remarked the quiet boy. Seth. Sam. Something or other.

"I'd make you great," he said. "I'd make you more than scavengers hiding in the trees. There was a time when you were respected as we were – when we were close enough to be one people. Think of it: the best of the pack and the best of the pod, one race."

He did not speak the rest of it. A certain amount of culling would be inevitable. There were too many headstrong characters among the Pack; too many who would not be biddable. He wanted their ferocity, but he wanted them...trained. Brought to heel, if you would.

"What do we gain?"

He raised his eyebrows politely. "Isn't it obvious? Power. The riches of the pod. Respectability. Friendship." He smiled. "Marriage to a mermaid, if you're lucky."

There was some laughter at that. Several of them had eyes for the pod girls, and Don had rapidly decided those he would match with the Pack to breed his new warriors. Eventually, he supposed, he would set aside Phi and find himself some worthy wolf. Among the scruffy vagrants before him, there were a few whose wildness concealed beauty.

"So you'd just sweep aside decades of hate, is that it?" drawled the old one, whose skepticism was becoming irritating. "All for a little power?"

Don met his eyes. "No," he said, his voice strong. "For a lot of power."

When the old one laughed, he knew he had them.

X - X - X - X - X

Waiting was the worst part. When the doorbell rang, Phi was out of the house and calling goodbyes to her parents in a flash, her stomach a Gordian knot of panic.

She had expected silence from Riose: instead he couldn't seem to stop talking. All his knowledge of the three Furies poured out him with a sort of desperation, as if by sharing it he might save her from them.

"...and whatever you do, don't challenge Therese about love or feelings and definitely don't tell her she lacks them. She'll either laugh at you, or she'll do her best to harm you. She would have only laughed once, but something happened – a boy, and I think perhaps she loved him, or she hated him, or she just wanted him so much that it hurt. It changed her forever, whatever it was. She won't talk about it. And she can't bear to be reminded in any way. Avoid love, Phi. It means so little to them."

He rattled to a stop, and when she glanced at his face, his eyes were stormy, distraught. He strode along as if he expected the ground to split open under his feet.

And so much to him, she thought with pity. Oh, he had learned to love, hadn't he?

This was not the cool, mature boy she knew; he was jangling and edgy, as if all this emotion buzzed like electricity in his heart.

"It'll be all right," she said, not knowing if it was true.

"Today maybe," he answered grimly. "But tomorrow? The day after? As long as I'm theirs, they'll use me to get to you all."

The woods formed narrow shaded tunnels that curved like a madman's sickle smile, on and on and on. They walked the very edge of the Ghost Roads until they turned a corner to a small house which slid forth from the thickets and trees as if it were a secret in itself.

It had an air of decrepitude; paint peeled on the window frames, broken tiles were matched by gaps in the roof like blackened teeth. Creepers gripped the walls in a stranglehold, but there was one sign of life: an obscenely large ginger cat nestled on the rusted car, one eye on them and the other shut, giving it the look of a particularly hairy pirate.

She didn't need Riose to tell her that this was it. His face was full of tightly held back grief, as if he was already saying his farewells to her.

"I'll see you later," she told him deliberately.

He only turned away, shoulders hunched.

The front door was open. You're no threat to us, it seemed to say. Come in, if you dare.

Feeling like Goldilocks, she did.

Silence hung about the house like a spider, occupying even the brightest corners. The sheer ordinariness of the place made it all more surreal; it smelled of fresh paint and coffee, and the varnished boards squeaked under her feet as she went down the wide hallway to the door there.

She hesitated, then knocked.

"Come in, little fish," said a woman's voice, low and throaty.

Last chance to run.

Feeling as if she stood on the verge of madness and revelation, Phi steeled herself, and stepped over the threshold.

X - X - X - X - X

The lounge was large, and a shaft of sunlight danced into her eyes from a mirror. Only by walking into the very center of the room – and them – could she avoid being blinded.

There was no mistaking the woman who reclined along the length of the green couch as if she were a Roman goddess. Her features had the same distinctive stamp as Riose's, but although her shining lips held a smile, it had no sincerity.

Phi did not hesitate. She dared not.

"You must be Therese," she said with assumed confidence. "Riose warned me about you."

Her laugh was all smoke and daggers. "I'd be disappointed if he didn't. And what did he say, little fish?"

That you knew love once, and it changed you.

"That you'd play devil's advocate because it suited you."

"Then who plays the devil?" she said with a sly, serrated smile.

Phi couldn't stop her eyes sliding to the man sat on the floor, so very conspicuous. She didn't need an introduction to know he was Bane Malefici: the mere fact of his presence gave it away, but his beauty marked him as surely as scars.

When she was young, Riose had told tales of him – tales whispered in dark rooms and quiet places, of a man who loved death with such savagery and such ferocity that he shattered his own heart trying to hold it.

The sharp, prominent bones of his face might have been the broken pieces; all angles and arresting shadows to Therese's plush curves, contradicted only by a generous mouth. His eyes were calculating and impersonal and quite, quite disturbing.

"Are you volunteering me for the job?" he said. His voice gave her a jolt. It was smooth and low, a whipped-cream voice with an arsenic dusting. "Very presumptuous."

"Very perceptive," corrected the third person, turning away from the window to settle onto a chair. Phi recognised Chatoya Irkil with disbelief. "You're certainly in the market for souls."

How could this woman, who had seemed so very ordinary in the Chill, be the infamous Grieving Fury? How could Cougar Redfern have looked at her with such starving fascination?

"This soul, yes," Bane Malefici acknowledged, dragging Phi's attention back to him. "But what are you prepared to sell it for, Delphine?"

Gathering herself, she achieved something like composure. "What I need. A broken blood-oath."

"And why should we help you, little fish?" Therese asked, eyes shrewd.

The afternoon of preparation came back, and suddenly it was all there before her, clear and sharp and logical.

Later, she could not remember the exact words she used; she only knew that she was calm as she spoke of past, of future, of pod politics and family ties.

She laid her reasons before the Furies like bones, solid in the afternoon light. All her fear was crushed inside her chest, unseen, and somehow she met their eyes and she answered their comments and their questions with little more than a stammer.

They were all unreadable in their way; Therese's smile, impenetrable, meaningless, flashed like a knife, whether in silence or sudden, incisive comments. If Bane Malefici seemed to be barely listening, the deft questions he hurled at her soon shattered that illusion. And as for Chatoya Irkil…this was not the woman she had met at The Chill; she wore only polite attention, and a warmth in her eyes that was as distant as it was constant.

She came then to the last, her feet a mass of ache from where she had stood so long, her throat sandpaper. "There is only one other reason they want Don and me to marry – to legitimise him as my father's heir."

"A common practice among your people," commented Therese with icy accuracy. "Why should you be the exception to the rule?"

Phi shifted from blue eyes to green eyes to black eyes, and she saw with sudden clarity that they were not so much older than herself. Each had risen through the Furies with meteoric swiftness, each was legend in their own right.

And she knew then what she needed to say – the words were fire on her lips, blistering, right.

"A true leader needs no legitimacy. They don't need anyone to speak on their behalf, to tell the world that they should be chosen – they are their own evidence, in their words and their actions and even their thoughts. If Don needs me to gain the support of the pod, then he shouldn't lead us. If he wants the pod, then he must win them as my father did – with respect."

"Very true," Bane Malefici remarked, and it seemed there was a note of triumph in his voice, though who it was directed at, she could not say.

"And what of your mother's visions?" said Chatoya, thoughtful. It was the first time she had made any comment. "As you said earlier, she has kept your pod safe. Why shouldn't she do the same for you?"

"Because I don't want to be safe. I want to be free."

"Do you think you can outrun your destiny?" the witch persisted.

"No. But there's a difference between fate and the future. There are countless futures – as many futures as there are choices, it's just that in each future there are some choices you'll face time and again. Those are your destiny – the constants, my mother calls them, the certain uncertainties. She just picks what she thinks is the best."

She swallowed. And she gave up a piece of her life each time she does it, until she had given away so much of herself that there was nothing left. She chose for them all, their private, lonely, wretched goddess.

"And sometimes..." she told them, the truth heavy in her heart. "Sometimes she is wrong."

X - X - X - X - X

Below the arches of the cave, Avy is restless. Her dream seems within her grasp at last, and yet she is suspicious. She had so many dreams once, and time decayed them before her eyes as it has decayed her body. All that she has lost taunts her: her beauty, her love, her status, her faith, her admirers. When she thinks of all that will be restored to her, she is almost frightened.

She has been monstrous so long, she can barely begin to imagine how it feel to be herself again.

She cannot free Zeke, of course. She has known that since the start, but as long as her curse binds him, he will not betray her. When the time comes, she will find some cold, dark abyss where his spark will dwindle, where no one will notice him trapped in the grip of eternal winter. It is not quite a kindness, but it is close.

In her eyes, the past whirls on in dizzy splendour. The future mirrors it: this in-between time will never have been.

She waits. She hungers. She hopes.

X - X - X - X - X

"So your part is done, little fish," said Therese, and for the first time there was no amusement in her voice. "The rest is down to us. No one has ever dared come before all three of us and ask for our help in breaking blood-oath. If nothing else, you have written part of our history today."

"I'd rather write my future," Phi said frankly, all her poise trembling on the edge of hysteria. She felt drained, empty. Had it been enough? Oh, please...

The ripe, dark mouth curled like a petal. "Few get such freedom. What do you say, Bane?"

Phi quailed under Bane Malefici's gaze: it was piercing and slow and drank her in as if she were blood in his mouth. All of Riose's warnings flooded back – she recalled him saying _he might let you live_ as if that were the best she could hope for. And she was clinging to her control, she was-

"Yes."

The word stopped her still. She stared at him, but events were already rolling past.

"And I say yes," Therese said firmly, and her large, liquid eyes gleamed with something close to glee. "Chatoya?"

Phi felt delirious – the future swung open like a gate, she could be free, she could be-

"No."

It was like a physical blow. Her legs sagged – she stumbled, but caught herself to stare into those moss-soft eyes that she had seen much closer, that had been so kindly, so compassionate…

"But why?" she whispered.

Her face was drawn. "It was not an easy decision, Phi-"

"Delphine," she said through numb lips as all her hope came toppling down like dominoes. Don't pretend we're friends. Don't pretend that your decision has no consequences for me. "My name is Delphine Thetis. Though I don't suppose I'll keep it much longer."

The witch did not flinch. "-but I don't need to explain it to you. Just…just trust that I've done what I think is for the best."

"Trust you," she repeated – anger came crashing through the disbelief, a hot wild rush. "Do you know what Don Ivan is? Do you have the faintest idea what he's capable of?"

"As it happens, yes."

"And you'll hand me to him, knowing what he is? How is that for the best? Best for who, exactly?"

"For everyone."

"I didn't come here for everyone," she said, her voice fraying, scratching the air like a trapped animal. Her last way out was gone – there was nothing left but the future and the past knitting like a wound, with her cowering amidst blood and mud and bone, where Don Ivan had left her. "I came for me."

Chatoya gazed at her, and Phi saw the Grieving Fury for the first time: sorrow glowed in her, brought strange and wild beauty in her gentle, heartbroken eyes. She wore her hair like mourning finery, black, shining, stark. "I'm sorry. That wasn't enough."

"And what would be?" she whispered.

Silence was her only answer. It was, of course, not enough.

_This is all I can say:  
I have lost my way._

_You only…  
You only…  
Disappear_

X - X - X - X - X


	15. Chapter Fifteen

On time once again. This is getting to be a habit...

Many thanks to the fabulous people who commented last time round - **Bex Drake, ****yukatalamia**, **Silvia**, **Helena**, **Lunair**, **chocolatetree**, **Shelli** and last but never least, the delectable **Daugain**

Lyrics come from The Zombies 'She's Not There'. I hope you enjoy...

**Ripples Part Fifteen**

_Well, no one told me about her  
What could I do?  
Well no one told me about her  
Though they all knew._

The door slammed. They were enclosed in silence.

Therese sighed. She supposed the girl would run home to shed her tears and then she would become the dutiful daughter she had tried so hard not to. It didn't bother her that they had refused Delphine; but it would bother her brother. And that, she regretted.

Power saturated the air, thick as honey. It puzzled her...

Then she saw the way that Chatoya and Blue were staring at each other. There was no mercy in either of their expressions, and she thought that any observer would have been hard-pressed to find love within the loathing there.

"Interesting decision," he remarked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Chatoya snapped, leaping to her feet.

"I think you've misunderstood the process of a bargain. They get something they want; we get something we want. Whether it does any good for anyone is irrelevant."

"Not to me."

"No? Then tell me exactly who will benefit from your altruism today."

"Why do you care? She's one shapeshifter."

"She is not 'one shapeshifter'," Blue pronounced with absolute disgust. "She is the child of the pod's leader and the pod's prophetess. She is a mermaid in the truest sense of the word and an extremely influential member of the pod – a society, I might mention, who own most of the land in this town, the lion's share of the power and who have never had a single member of their species in the Furies, for reasons that you might know if you had bothered to do the slightest bit of research!"

"You seem to have forgotten what else she is," Chatoya threw at him, quivering with anger. She was vibrant amidst the muted palette of the room, her face white, fierce, passionate, her eyes sharp and dark as holly leaves. "She's just a girl. She's far too young for any of this."

"As you were too young?"

That barb hit home. The air surged – gripping, brief – before Chatoya controlled herself, barely.

A thin black halo hugged the witch's body as Therese quietly marked the exits and activated the defensive charms she always wore in case things became nasty. Nastier. She was not fool enough to watch a lover's tiff when the lovers in question had apocalyptic powers and an apparent need to antagonize one another.

"I had no choice," Chatoya said stiffly. "You took them all away."

"Ah, the sweet taste of irony." Blue licked his lips slowly. "No, wait, it's just the appalling coffee Therese made."

"Don't bring me into this," she remarked. "Though he has a point."

Chatoya's attention snapped to her as if she were glad to get Blue out of her head. Which was quite possibly the case. "Meaning what?"

"Riose would not have let the little fish come unless he was sure she understood what she faced. She knew what lay before her – and she made her choice. You denied her. You have taken away her choice."

"I will not hand any more children to the Furies." She turned away, but there was no mistaking the bleakness in her voice. "No future that waits for her could be worse than us."

Therese gazed at her rigid back in disbelief. Did the fool really believe that? Did she not yet understand that everyone had their price, that sometimes in the balance of two terrible choices the Furies were not the worst?

Blue's laughter had a hard, cutting edge. "How little you know."

"I've read her file. I know what I have left her to." She sounded tired and hollow.

"I doubt it." He stood – sleek, swift, he went to her, blocking her from Therese's vision. The afternoon light mingled their shadows into one united shape, but such closeness was a threat, the intimacy of pain in the guise of pleasure. "You guess. You assume. You do not know what she fears."

"But I know you." Her whisper was rough, and Therese heard the anguish in it. "I know myself."

"Those are your fears," he said, contempt searing his voice. "And your mistake."

The crack of her hand on his face was like a gunshot.

"My only mistake was you," Chatoya said coldly. In a blast of churning power she swept from the room, leaving Blue behind and entirely still except for the rosy mark that slowly bloomed on his cheek.

X - X - X - X - X

Phi barely noticed the world passing by her, her heart still unable to believe what her mind knew so solidly to be true. She drifted through the trees with the air of a ghost, barely extant in her own life.

How could they have refused her – how could Chatoya have refused her?

The conversation with Riose in the music room reverberated through her; this despair was an echo of that, deeper, truer, ever more violent. With that in mind that she found herself on his doorstep, ringing the bell until it shrilled endlessly through the house. She needed answers, she needed him to tell her that it was not hopeless.

When he opened the door, his face was flushed with sleep, his hair rumpled into a dark mess, but those turquoise eyes widened at the sight of her obvious distress.

"Phi!" he said, and the sheer astonishment in her face told that he had genuinely believed she might not survive. "Did they…"

"She refused," she said flatly. "The Grieving Fury."

He frowned. "Just her?"

"Oh yes. Guess why she said no."

His gaze was level, very shrewd; she glimpsed one of the Furies then, and found him colder and more calculating than the boy she thought she knew. "Because Malefici said yes."

Bemused, she shook her head. "That wasn't what she said."

"Huh." His raised eyebrows implied that was of little importance. "What was her reason, then?"

"That it was best for everyone," she mimicked, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice. "Except me, but apparently I don't matter."

The anger was stoked to raging temperatures in her; she was flushed, trembling, half a thing of fire, and it felt bittersweet – consumed as she was, at least it staved off the despair that she was not willing to fall to. Not yet, not while there was the slightest chance left.

Riose peered at her. "Why is it best for everyone? What does she honestly think Don Ivan's going to do for the pod?"

"I wish I knew," she said, the truth silent and stinging on her tongue: she didn't know what he would do for the pod. She only knew what he had done to her. That was enough, too much, no more. "What can I do to change her mind?"

His lips parted, but she saw the sorrow that crept over him. "Phi…"

"Don't tell me nothing, Ri, don't tell me that," she hurled at him ferociously. "I won't accept it."

"It's not your choice." His gentleness was that of a man breaking dreadful news. "It was always theirs. If they said no…"

"One of them said no," she corrected him, refusing to give in so easily. Raking through solutions, she searched frenetically until- "Wait. Why…why did you think Chatoya only refused because Bane Malefici agreed?"

He looked taken aback by this change of tack. "They can't stand each other. It's common knowledge."

And suddenly her mind was spinning into top speed, moving with the swiftness of someone who understood the intense, visceral power of loathing – who knew just the savagery it could rouse.

"She'd refuse just to annoy him?"

"Possibly, but I don't see what this has-"

Suddenly the hope was back, roaring, mighty, burning her up like fever. "So tell me, Ri, don't you think it'd be a perfect revenge for him to help me anyway?"

"No!"

He grabbed her, and his hands were crushing on her shoulders – he shook her, a wildness in his eyes that she'd never seen before.

"Don't go to him," he said in a fast, low voice. "Don't do it, Phi. You don't know what he'll want in return, you don't understand what he's capable of."

"Oh, Ri…" she said sadly. "You're probably right. But don't you understand? I know exactly what Don's capable of. I've always known."

"What on earth did he do that makes Blue Malefici look like the soft option?"

Part of her wanted to tell him. It would be shared then, like carving a cancer out of her flesh for the world to examine. But she did not want to dredge up those memories, she could not bear to have it play out behind her eyelids again as it so often did in her dreams and her idle moments.

"It was a long time ago," she said. "It's in the past. But I don't intend it to be in the future."

He let her go with a hiss of frustration. "Phi, please. Don't go to Malefici."

"Will your sister help me instead?" she challenged.

"No." The words were grudging.

"And the Demon Fury?"

His silence, reluctant, furious, was all the answer she needed. They stood in mute and mutual regret, she understanding his chagrin, yet unable to give up this last frail thread of hope.

He turned away with a hiss, and she saw that there was nothing more to say. It seemed best then to leave, showing him her back because he would not show her his face. She hoped she hadn't destroyed their friendship, but what other way was left to her?

Then she stopped, and turned back to him.

"Thank you, Ri."

"I told you," he snarled, and the self-loathing in his voice was dark and blistering. "Don't thank me. I've done you no favours."

"You have," Phi told him. "You let me make my own choice."

He glanced back, and his face softened, confusion wiping away some of the hatred he bent inward so effortlessly. "I wish you'd chosen differently."

She smiled, though it was a flimsy mask for all her doubt and dread. "I don't."

X - X - X - X - X

The burn on his hand still hurt. If anything, it seemed a little larger, but perhaps that was his imagination. Zeke had never had a scar. Wounds aplenty, yes, but that was just part and parcel of a slave's life in the court of the Soulless King, and none ever marred him for longer than a few hours. Mere minutes if Ryar had been around.

He paced the confines of the clearing, restless. Occasionally he rubbed at the burn, unconscious of the gesture.

There had to be some way around this. _Not by word or thought or deed_; neither Phi, nor anyone else can know of her plans.

But only of her plans. Avy put no proviso on anything else – on knowledge of his existence.

He didn't know why that thought lingered, what it meant, only that some nagging certainty had caught him. Thoughts of Avy were interspersed with far sweeter thoughts of Phi: flashes of her auburn hair vivid as autumn leaves tumbling down to carpet the ground. Of her faithful weight in his arms, of her kisses which had not tasted of desperation or obligation.

He swung between them like a pendulum, the two inextricable in his mind. While Avy lived, Phi was in danger. All the pieces of herself that she'd given him glittered brightly in his mind, stars against the unforgiving future that had lain before him with the surety and tenacity of nightfall.

Faces cycled past, brought to life by her voice – the friends she held so dear, Celia and Finn and Riose and Jo, her parents, the merpeople-

Jess Arryn.

He stopped, wire-tense, suddenly seeing what should have been clear so much sooner. She had known him and she surely must have guessed he had something to do with Aurora. Her and that other one: what was his name, the boy – old now, surely?

Another face from Phi's gifted memories – lone wolf, she'd called him with a fond note in her voice, but Zeke could strip away the years and see the pack boy that had adored Aurora so intensely. Iry. That was it. Iry and Jess, still here.

His mind raced. Yes, they would recognize him. Surely they would question him – they would need to know – and if they plucked his secrets out by force, well then, what could he do about it?

It was risky. No doubt there. He could not tell them – they would have to seize his secrets. They would have to be ruthless, angry, beyond mercy.

He closed his eyes, and thought of Aurora at her last, raving and vicious. He remembered the look in the wolf boy's eyes when she left him to run to Zeke – jealousy acid in his stare, his heartbreak as public as everything had been between Pack and pod.

Yes. He could do it. Someone had to – Zeke would not play the Pied Piper, leading Phi to death.

Grey of her eyes, flashing into his mind, so very steady and unafraid. And he thought of a world he'd once known, buried deep in a distant land, where people had sung back the sun and it seemed to him that her eyes were the exact, soft colour of a morning sky waiting for the light to return.

It haunted him as he left the grove, determined that her wait would end. The past would not be forgotten lest the future - and her - tumble into dust with it.

X - X - X - X - X

The winding walk through the forest seemed to take less time. Perhaps it was because she half-ran, dodging through the dappled shade with a gambler's reckless speed.

It gave Phi a cold jolt to see the house slide forth from the thickets like a cloud. The cat still spilled across the car hood in a mass of ginger fur and flab. She felt oddly timeless, as if all three of them would still be within. Only the lengthened shadows and the now-closed door told her that she had aged, entered, been denied.

She hammered on the door so hard it hurt, and when it swung open, she only just stopped herself from thumping Bane Malefici – a mistake, she suspected, that would have cost her.

His narrow gaze swept her but before he could say anything, before she could have the sense to be frightened, Phi jumped in.

"I want that blood-oath broken. The decision was wrong." Defiant, she stepped over the threshold, so close to him that if he hadn't slid back with something close to distaste, they would have been pressed together like hands in prayer.

"Do come in," he drawled, but sounded amused. "Your persistence is admirable. Your rudeness is not."

"Neither would be necessary if you hadn't turned me down."

"I did not turn you down." There was no inflection on the words – but it meant something. It was not a flat out refusal.

"No," she agreed. "Which is why I've come back."

"If you were wiser, you would have approached Therese."

This was unexpected. Honesty, she decided, was the best policy. "Riose said she'd turn me down."

"She would. As I said, wiser." Something eerie and indescribable stirred in his eyes, and suddenly his hand was around her throat, light, the promise of pressure there. "You don't want to bargain with me."

Fear crawled up her spine then, scraping like a bitter winter wind. He must have felt her pulse jumping against his fingers; perhaps it was that which made his lips peel back to bare fangs, his humanity rolling back with it to leave him absolutely unearthly, his pupils black as blood.

The door slammed shut behind her. He had not moved, but the shadow that fell over them made it appear he had – it put strange hollows into his face, paring away all colour until he was monochrome, terrible, an angel corrupted into darkness and bone.

Mud and blood and bone...

Even he was better than that.

"No," she said, her voice thin, slight as gauze. "I don't want to. But I need to."

Both of them knew she needed him; he needed no one. "Then you will pay."

"Yes," she answered, hopeless.

Bane Malefici's smile was brilliant and cruel.

X - X - X - X - X

It was only a matter of a few polite questions. Jessica Arryn was well known enough for no one to be suspicious of a stranger asking for her, even one that kept his eyes aimed firmly at the ground.

When he came trudging up the path to where she was weeding the garden, he must have appeared a ghost to her, unchanged by the years. He raised his eyes to her, coppery, gleaming, fire caged in flesh.

"Hello Jess," he said quietly.

The trowel thudded onto the flowerbed. Her hands were trembling, he realized.

He could still see the laughing, mischievous girl buried beneath the seams of age and it made his heart ache. Nor had time snatched the steel from her, because she only straightened slowly and took him in from top to toe.

"Now, I know I'm not senile," she said. "Which makes you real. And foolish, boy. Why have you come back?"

"To explain."

Her laughter was bitter. "I need no explanations from you."

"Probably not." The little wooden gate squeaked as he opened it. The garden had the feel of her - a chaotic muddle of colours burst from every corner. "But I thought you might want one anyway."

She held up a hand as if to stop him coming any closer. Her face was hard. "Why now? You've kept your secrets and your silence for decades."

He hesitated, but this much of the truth at least passed his lips without pain. "I...no longer think it fair to keep them. I owe it to her and to you."

"Yes, you do," she said with great calm and dignity. "And to Iry. He deserves to hear this too. You'd best come inside, boy."

"I have a name. You knew it once."

"So I did. I won't poison my tongue with it, though." Her scorn was a dreadful mirror in which to view himself. Part of him cringed. Yet unpleasant as it was, he needed her hostility. Without such a beginning, he could not make an end of this farcical pledge Avy had bound him to.

The burn on his hand ached. It was too keen a reminder.

X - X - X - X - X

Bane Malefici didn't offer her a seat. Phi took one anyway because she thought she would fall over if she didn't. Her heart was thudding relentlessly, her blood sloshing around her veins with such indecent speed that she felt sick.

"I assume you understand exactly what breaking means," he said carelessly.

"The…the blood-oath?"

His eyes consumed her, spat her out as bones and truth. "What else?"

She heard the treacherous quiver in her voice. "You'll take away the part of me that's mer. The contract was between two mer and this will make it invalid. Don can't marry me, but he can't punish my parents either."

"Legally speaking, you're correct."

She understood what he did not say: that there were no guarantees, that in rage and power denied, Don might still try to claim her parents' blood. But she hoped – she had to – that the Elders would step between them. She would do everything in her power to make it so, to make it public, visible, irrefutable.

Phi licked suddenly dry lips. "How will you do it?"

Something that might have been mirth flickered at the corners of his mouth. "Oh, I shan't do a thing. Tell me, Delphine, what do you know of your people's history?"

It was a strange question. "I know about my grandparents, if that's what you mean, and about Aurora."

"And of your very first days, when you were newly made by Ryar ap Sangager and sent across the steaming seas?"

"I know our legends," she said uncertainly.

He gestured. "Enlighten me."

She could read nothing from his face, which was still and white as unsullied snow. "It was the last days of the Burning Times. Things were desperate – Ryar had betrayed her own people to try and save the witches from annihilation, and hundreds of the dragons had gone with her, but it wasn't enough. There were more dead than living, and the witches were begging her to try and save them somehow. She took some of their children and she gave them her own power, so that they would be strong when they grew, but she knew they couldn't defend themselves…" She trailed off, feeling foolish. "Is this what you mean?"

"It is."

"She knew they couldn't defend themselves," she repeated, "and the witches could spare no one from the fighting – or at least, anyone who would volunteer to go wasn't likely to offer their lives to save a pair of freakish kids. So she went down to the ocean and she took the water and the starlight and the last of her hope and fashioned us from it. And then she gave the children to us and we took them far away from the war, over the ocean to a great, still land which knew nothing of fire and hatred."

She snuck a glance at him. His half-closed eyes seemed sleepy, but she thought he'd made some small sound of contempt. Maybe it had been her imagination.

"Later, when the war was over, we returned to find Ryar. But she was dead – killed by her own husband, who couldn't live with her betrayal. We searched until we found her body, here, beneath the lake, and we swore to guard her remains as we had guarded the children." She spread her hands. "We've been here ever since."

His laughter was sudden, jarring, and jagged with scorn. "An interesting version of the truth."

"Isn't everything?" she said flatly.

His glance was shrewd. "How very cynical. And accurate. Do you want the truth, Delphine? Do you think you can bear it?"

"Do I have a choice?"

She felt tired inside. Her mother had always told it as a fairytale; and Phi had always accepted it as one, and yet…and yet the history of the mer was something she had always taken pride in. Against a world at war, they had saved lives and made an idyll in a corner of the seas.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said bitingly. "It is part of my price."

The fear was back, overwhelming. "And the rest?" she whispered. She had nothing to negotiate with – she could only take what he offered, and pray that the horror would have an end, if not a merciful one.

"A day and an hour."

His eyes were dark as tar, heavy with desires that made her skin crawl. The metres separating them no longer seemed enough – she wanted miles between them, an ocean, the unending void of space.

"I'm not sure I understand," she said hesitantly, afraid that she did and wanting to be wrong.

"The day will be of my choosing. One day, Delphine Thetis, for which you are mine, and you will survive it."

"Why?" she said, terror leaching her of all tact. Survive, yes. No mention of whole, unharmed, sane. Oh gods.

His smile made him beautiful, a creature of icy edges, sleek, dazzling, sharp.

"So that you will remember, and wait for the hour."

She could not turn back. It was too late – she was no longer sure if this was the better choice, if she had run mad beneath her desperation and her panic, yet now she had to live with it. Perhaps to die for it. "Which hour?"

"The last hour of your life, Delphine," he said in a voice rich with promise. "It will belong to me."

A story, a day, an hour. It sounded such a small price if she thought only of the words and not of the intent behind them. Such a small price to rouse such awful and intense fear.

But what else could she do?

"Yes," she answered at last.

His voice was pure, purring triumph. "So be it."

"When-" she began, tentative and he cut her off with a raised finger.

"Why now, of course. Isn't it said that there's no time like the present?"

She could not answer him; she was paralysed.

"Although," he added thoughtfully, "you may think otherwise when this is done."

X - X - X - X - X

"So."

Iry Lupine had felt the touch of time less than Jessica Arryn. His hair was flecked with grey, but his face was still youthful and his eyes still burned with unholy anger. He stalked towards Zeke, his mouth grim – and then he hit him so hard that Zeke staggered back into the wall. The picture of Aurora rattled on the mantelpiece.

"You've got a nerve," snarled the werewolf.

Zeke wiped away the blood trickling from his mouth.

Iry lifted his hand again – and Jess caught it in her gnarled fingers.

"Not in my house, Iry."

He barely gave Jess a glance. He could have shaken her off easily, yet the werewolf stood there, willingly shackled by her. "Then where, eh, Jess? Where's a fit place to kill him?"

"There's no such place," the dolphin answered sharply. "I didn't call you here to spill blood on my carpet. I called you to hear what he has to say."

"I'll hear," Iry said flatly. "An' then I've a few things of my own to say."

Under that brutality shone a clear, profound grief.

He loved her, Zeke realized with a clammy, sick feeling in his stomach. Then - and now.

He had not thought it more than passing desire. Aurora had spoken of Iry as one admirer among many; merely the most persistent. But it had been more than that, and he had been too blind to see it.

And would he have cared? He was so desperate then, so very selfish. Aurora had opened up a future that was better than what lay before him. Zeke thought that he would have stolen her away, his changeling hope, no matter what.

And now…?

The thought was sudden and frightening. Yet unbidden it unfurled in his heart, blazing like a flag.

And now he had someone he was just as afraid to lose.

Zeke dared not follow it any further. To dawn-grey eyes and a mop of fiery hair, to…

To the reason he was here. He drew himself up, jaw aching, and gave Iry the flashing, arrogant smile he had seen on Fireblade so often. "Then say them where she can hear too."

"You took her."

"I buried her," he acknowledged. He could not tell them why – of the ghastly fear that had haunted him, of the Burning Days come back to him and the terrible nature of all Fireblade's sorceries.

A low snarl rolled over the room. There was no mistaking the hatred in Iry's eyes. "Show me."

X - X - X - X - X

"What do I need to do?"

Phi heard how flat her voice was. It didn't seem quite real, any of it. Here she was, sat in the Demon Fury's house. The sun was shining, the clock ticked on – she felt the world ought to have at least paused in its spin, but outside the birds still trilled merrily.

"Have a little patience," he said idly, and then – to her utter disbelief – picked up a book and began to read.

She stared at him, but he didn't appear to notice. All his attention was devoted to the book. She focused on the title, and couldn't help but feel bemused.

"Good book?" she inquired, unable to contain herself.

"Educational," he said. "You might find some merit in it."

"I think I've grown out of fairytales," she said acidly.

She was surprised when he leant over and handed her the book, but then she caught the glint of malice in his eyes. "Are you so sure?"

She dropped her eyes to the page. The words leapt up, and she was a child, Jess reading to her by the fading light of a summer sunset.

_Far out at sea the water is as blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower and as clear as the purest glass, but it's very deep, deeper than any anchor line can reach. Down there live the sea folk…_

Speechless with mingled fear and fury, she handed it back and he settled into the story again. Now though, a faint smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. She hated him for it.

Adding insult to injury, he had the gall to sit in front of her reading The Little Mermaid.

Eventually, she could bear the mocking silence no longer. "I thought you said there was no time like the present."

She gasped at the pain that hit her, twisting like a rotor blade inside her head. She was lost, helpless beneath agony, which moved with exquisite slowness through her – she tumbled in its wake, disjointed, thoughtless as world receded into black and red and grey-

It ceased. He had not even bothered to raise his eyes from the page, but she felt the power that simmered about him like smoke.

"You have a choice here, Delphine," Bane Malefici murmured, and a certain drowsy languor in his voice told her that he had enjoyed her suffering. "You can wait quietly and patiently, or you can draw my attention again and have an accurate preview of just what one day with me will mean. Which would you prefer?"

Lips pressed together, she made no answer.

"Precisely," he said, and thereafter nothing broke the hush except the rustle of a turning page.

She could not say how long it was she waited – long enough for her shivering to stop, for the pain to be no more than a thin film of memory.

And then a sound - the door opening, hasty footsteps…

A woman came into the room.

She seemed evanescent and shadowy – as if the sunlight would shine right through her. Her moon-white hair drifted about her in shining, fluttering array, pale as her skin. It was not a lovely face, rigid with fear, the darkness of her eyes like bruises.

But Phi knew the power that radiated from her because it was an echo of her own, magnified to a strength and a potency that could mean only one thing. It made even the strongest of the pod seem insignificant: for she was the true, clear note and they mere echoes.

"Ryar," she gasped, not believing, not able to deny it.

And Ryar ap Sangager, the first and truest mermaid, who should have been dust in her tomb beyond the lake, raised those fearful eyes to her and the pain there pierced Phi like a spear.

It was true. It was her.

Her voice was soft as breaking waves. "Yes."

_But it's too late to say you're sorry  
How would I know?  
Why should I care?  
Please don't bother trying to find her  
She's not there._

X - X - X - X - X


	16. Chapter Sixteen

'Tis the season to be jolly – and punctual!

Many festive thanks to those most lovely people who review last time round – **yukatalamia**,** tracing-tt**, **yen**, **Bex Drake**, **Silvia**, **chocolatetree** , **mandy40**, and last but never least, the excellent **Elentiriel.**

As you can probably tell, I do very much adore, pore over, revere, cheer (and occasionally fear) comments. I'd love to hear what you think; all comments, criticism and PMs welcome.

Lyrics come from Fiona Apple's 'The Child Is Gone' from Tidal. I hope you enjoy!  
Ki

**Ripples Part Sixteen**

_Let me sink in the silence that echoes inside  
And don't bother leaving the light on  
'Cause I suddenly feel like a different person_

The pod had its own fairytales. They didn't speak of the big bad wolf or glass slippers or spinning wheels. Theirs were stories of the sea which had birthed them and the woman who had breathed life into them and forsaken her own in so doing.

And now the myth – impossibly - stood before her.

"But you're dead," Phi breathed in wonder, rising from her chair. "I mean, you were…weren't you?"

Ryar ap Sangager's smile was terribly sad. "Yes. I died. And I was brought back."

"How is that even possible?"

Those sorrowful eyes shifted to Bane, but danced away as if she too was made uneasy by his presence. "It is possible if you are foolish enough and heartless enough to rip open the barriers between life and death. As for why…" Her breath shuddered out. "A man who loved me once could no longer bear his guilt."

"Fireblade?" she said without thinking.

Ryar flinched at the name, as if it were a strike at her heart. "Of course you would know. Yes. He brought me back, and I would not be his again. He is gone. And I…" She turned her hands in the light, and a quiet joy rose in her voice. "I am learning to live."

Bane yawned ostentatiously. "Could we skip the touching moment of self-affirmation? In case you've forgotten, my dear nightingale, I brought you here to repay your debt."

What could Ryar ap Sangager possibly owe him?

"So you did." Ryar reached out and when her fingers brushed Phi's cheek, it might have been the touch of a relative, beloved, familiar. "Delphine Thetis."

"Yes."

"You keep all the old traditions, don't you? The Oracle of Delphi was consigned to hell and dust long ago, but still you carry its memory in your name." Her smile was beautiful, fragile and full of bewildering sadness.

"The Oracle of Delphi?" she asked. The name rang a vague chord, but she could draw nothing to mind.

"It was a creature, a prophet – the most powerful that ever was. Even more so than me." She sounded as if she pitied it. "It would dole out the future in exchange for memories of happiness – knowing as it did all the ills of the world to come, it had no joy of its own, only what we poor, short-sighted fools could offer it."

Phi thought of her mother, alone in her sickroom.

Ryar sighed. "But you didn't come here to hear me talk about the past. Is this what you want, Phi? For me to take back my power?"

Want? No. But it was the choice before her and she would not balk. She could not.

"Yes."

"It won't be easy," the dragon warned gently.

"I didn't expect it to be," she said, then hesitated. All those old fairytales resurfaced, one fact salient among them. "All our stories say you were a great healer."

A touch of pride showed in Ryar's sudden smile.

"I still am. The best there is."

Hardly daring to hope, she met those gentle eyes. "My mother…my mother is ill. Could you help her?"

"I can try."

Phi tried to stamp down on the jubilation that welled up in her. It was a promise, not a cure. But gods knew it was more than she'd had to clutch at before.

"Make yourself comfortable, then," cut in Bane's voice. "And I will take the first part of my price."

"Your price?" Ryar stared at him, imperious. "I will not be party to torture-"

"And the truth?" he enquired sharply. "Will you be party to that?"

Confusion glimmered in her face. "As always."

"Then you can do me the courtesy of listening while I speak it. A story, Delphine, the true story of the making of the mer."

"Hael…" Ryar said, and oddly, she sounded as if she were pleading. To who, Phi did not know or understand.

"It's all right," she interrupted. "I agreed."

Ryar made a small unhappy sound, but she laid her hands on either side of Phi's face. For a moment, nothing happened – then Phi realised that her touch was cool and growing colder, cold as ice, cold as crumpling stars, cold as death.

Pernicious, slow chill spread over her cheeks and lips. The numbness ate away at her until her body seemed a lumpen thing of clay far beyond. Fear welled in her as it crept towards her eyes – she tried to scream but her throat was merely ice and emptiness-

She was nothing but a floating thought in a deathly, graying, vacant world.

And then the voice came.

It brought back something of herself. She put a name to it: Bane Malefici, and its smooth, bored rhythm was something to cling to as her power streamed away.

"You were right about some things, mermaid. It was indeed the last days of the Burning Times and all was desperate. Imagine if you will a world that had been afire for nearly ten years, a world parched of any moisture but blood. The corpses bloated the rivers and the seas – a tide of the dead that not even Hades would accept."

Her vision seemed filled with smoke that swirled tantalizingly, twitching apart like the veils of a dancer to reveal flashes of the past.

She saw a world battered to the point of destruction. Cities decayed under a blood-blister of a sun, immense stone towers stabbing at the sky, others toppled to dust. Great swathes of cracked, burned land spread out beyond them and alone on the road out of the ruined city, a madwoman sat, rocking her dead child in her arms as she sang lullabies of a better world.

This was Ryar's life as it had truly been.

"The witches teetered on the brink of annihilation. Those who remained were drained of power and hope. Families had been reforged and shattered countless times until those few children who could survive the plagues, the famines, the endless assaults were less than twenty."

Thin faces. Horrific wounds; all hope fading in their eyes.

"She was their heroine, the first to speak for them: the first to fight for them. When Ryar ap Sangager came to them, I imagine she seemed like a goddess." His scorn was palpable. "I doubt they knew what she had done in their name, and if she knew what they had done in hers, she justified it to herself."

"They begged for my help." The new voice was soft, full of emotion. "They tried to get on their knees in front of me, as if I was still a princess in the Soulless Court. Oh, the fools, my people, how could I refuse them? I gave as much power as I could spare to the children, knowing that what I did would kill most, maybe all. Two lived, less than dragons, more than witches, and I knew they could not stay there."

"And did you make the mer from starlight and water and the last of your hope?"

There was no mistaking the acidity of his voice: it cut through the fog that swirled around Phi.

No answer came. Suspended, she drifted, not understanding why the story had paused in its telling of her making as she endured her unmaking.

"No." Ryar's voice was leaden. "You know I didn't."

"Tell your mermaid what she is, then."

"I called in the dolphins from the deep waters..." Her voice withered, and then came in a choked rush. "But they were still only animals, and I knew I could not trust them alone."

There was a long silence, and then Ryar spoke again.

"We all belong to Hades, but water has always been mine, and so have the drowned. I told them what I could do, what it would cost, and having gone so far already, what else could they do but offer up themselves? I drowned the last of those witches there, under the starlight, in the waters, and the last of my hope too, and then I cast their spirits into the dolphins and sent them away, hung in limbo between life and death until they gave themselves to Hades once more. I gave them my gift of prophecy so they could protect the children. I did not understand what it would do to them. I wish…"

Ryar broke off and laughed. It was a terrible sound, brittle, rattling, like dice in a cup

"I wish war had never come. I wish that he had not loved me," she said softly.

Phi did not trouble to think who she spoke of: her mind dwelled, unbelieving, on the horrors of her ancestors.

"This is how the mer began," Bane Malefici stated. "The choked, clogged dead returned to animals, half-mad, trawling through the future."

No…

"You found your idyll, Delphine Thetis – and destroyed it, searching through the future to win every war in your new and glorious land, and to enslave all the people. The mer made a great civilization, and drowned a slave each day in the name of Ryar ap Sangager, in self-commemoration."

"Not in my name!" said Ryar fiercely.

"Not by your choice, siren, but in your name. Oh, they kept their word to you – to keep those precious children safe. They were so very safe shut up in dark rooms, kept from the world. No danger could ever intrude upon them, knowing as they did only stone and shadows and the drip of water."

"I didn't know..."

"Or did you choose not to look?" The cruelty there was as fine, as delicate as a needle. "You gave away your gift of prophecy, Ryar. And they honoured you for it, you know. Their seers plucked out their eyes in remembrance, to see the future more clearly. What a mighty kingdom was Atlantis!"

His tart tone was gleeful in the shadowy world. Phi shuddered at it, at these strange, abominable truths she had not fathomed.

"A drowned king ruled in a drowning land. For a hundred years, he sacrificed to a dead woman until bodies rimmed the island, washing up bloated on the shore."

The images flashed before her, grotesque. Cadavers blanketed the ocean, their fingers rippling like seaweed, their mouth slack, sloughing caverns invaded by the salt water.

"One day, inevitably of course, someone escaped across the ragged ocean and they came to a world rebuilding itself, a world which no longer had any patience for murderous kings. A group came to topple the mer, and they called themselves K'Shaia – in mercy. It was a terrible battle."

_K'Shaia was created to destroy us, and we survived_. Her mother's voice was calm, triumphant.

"Those with sense fled: those maddened even beyond the urge to survive fought beyond reason or hope, and they lost. How that mer king screamed when they came to drown him for the second and last time - he thrashed and kicked and squirmed beneath the waves, knowing exactly what lay before him."

She caught a dizzying glimpse of a man's face distorted by water. His black, gaping mouth and wild eyes were still visible through his bedraggled hair. He rose, gasping in precious air only to screech in wordless horror, but hands forced him back under.

"Legend says that although they sent him into death, Hades would not take him. And so he lay within his drowned body as it putrefied until his spirit dissolved into the ocean, left to relive his drowning pain time and again as he existed evermore within the water – brought back upon the crest of every wave, Delphine, taken to the ocean's deepest heart."

The funeral rite...was that what it meant? Not a blessing, but a curse. Unable to ask, she could only listen to his cool, scornful voice.

"Others escaped and fearing K'Shaia, who hunted them still, they lived a gentler life. Their children were not told their true history and followed other paths. None knew that they were born of death, that they had once ruled a monstrous kingdom, and so your tales became soft things of starlight and hope, as you yourselves became soft. You forgot the fear of drowning, and remembered only Ryar's kindness, not her cruelty. You became as you are."

Slowly, surely, Phi felt her body again. The numbness receded – and left only a profound, aching absence, as if some essential part of herself had been scooped out. She hunched in on herself, shivering. She felt sick to her stomach.

At last she gained enough control to meet Bane Malefici's cruel, hooded eyes.

"And you, Delphine Thetis," he said, her name a silky caress. "Alone of all the mer in all the world, you chose to give back Ryar's power and be only a girl, bereft of all that once you were and might be again."

Bereft. Yes. That was the right word for what she felt as she sat there, her power yielded, her world wildly askew.

This was what she was: daughter of a people drowning, daughter of a woman who has blinded herself, a people who betrayed themselves.

Oh, they had not changed at all.

X - X - X - X - X

The headstone was stark as ever in the grove. Jess drew in a sharp breath at the sight of it; Iry made no sound, but strode forward and then halted abruptly, as if he could not bring himself to go any closer.

"That's her, then," the dolphin said. "How did you get by the guards?"

Avy had cast her net wide that night. She was afraid of what Aurora might become: she remembered too well the Burning Times and Fireblade's deadliest weapons. She could not risk them burning the body, so she toppled the guards into slumber and sent him to bury Aurora in the damp earth, far from any spark.

But Zeke could speak none of it; the geas bound him, and in truth, those times of war hovered too close, an ever-present threat.

"A spell," he answered.

Iry snorted. "Bought with no questions asked, I s'pose. I know the type." A dark, awful malice glittered in his eyes.

Zeke was afraid as he had not been since the Burning Times. No matter what Avy might do to him, ultimately, she needed him alive. Everything in the werewolf's eyes said he wanted him dead.

"Why did you put up a headstone?" Jess sounded dreamy, curious.

Off-guard, he tried to read her expression. Nothing. "It…it seemed right. I thought one day someone could know. She wouldn't have wanted to be forgotten."

Her gaze was piercing. "You knew her too, didn't you? Better than us in some ways."

"The wrong ways," he admitted. This wasn't going as he had expected. "She was…"

And Zeke saw the truth of it, what he had known then but never really acknowledged.

"She was very unhappy."

"She was alive," Iry said sharply. "Until you came along."

Zeke opened his mouth, knowing that this was the opportunity, and he sought the right words, the ones that would provoke Iry beyond all rationality-

He started at a thump. Jess had drawn his battered luggage out from the foliage – his scant possessions, packed away, the clothes he had scavenged, the mildewed books he'd gathered over the years, the few things Avy would let him have of his own.

Jess ran a hand over the suitcase, foxed leather. It clicked open at her careful touch and she picked carefully through the contents. "Yours, boy?"

"Yes..." Zeke said guardedly. Here was a tone in her voice he didn't understand, almost gentle.

"Don't you have a home to go to?"

He shrugged. "This is my home. It's not as though I could get a job, is it? Too many people might remember me." And Avy would never let him have such freedom. "And I don't need much else. It's quiet and it's off the beaten track."

Was that shock in her eyes? Strange. "You live here? Where do you sleep?"

He gestured to the grassy earth.

Her mouth twisted. "Just like the Pack," she muttered.

"Those damn vagrants ain't Pack," snapped Iry. "They're rags an' tags. Homeless kids."

"If the Pack hadn't fallen apart in anger and fear, they would have homes," she said quietly. "The wolves I knew once would never have left their own to live a life like this. They would have done their duty."

"As you did your duty?" the werewolf demanded.

Zeke had the uneasy feeling he was in the midst of an old argument, and he had no idea of its source or its conclusion.

"I did mine," replied Jess with calm dignity. "You did not. Both of us were wrong."

Iry gave a savage crack of laughter. "Ain't you wise in your old age?"

"No. Just old."

There was no mistaking her regret, and it visibly quenched all the wolf's irritation.

"Not to me," he said fondly. "Damn pod girls. Love 'em, hate 'em, you can't help y'self. All the same."

"Except her." Jess glanced at the grave.

"Aye. There was no one like her. You could only love her, couldn't you? She wouldn't stand for less."

"Your one and only," Jess murmured. Zeke didn't understand the odd, wistful tone of her voice.

"No," answered Iry. "There was another I could'a loved. But she was married to her duty an' that meant she wouldn't ever marry an old outcast like me."

She was silent. Then she said very quietly, "You still could have asked."

Oh. Zeke had a sudden, strange sense of the lives that had carried on without him, without Aurora: the pair of them had shot through these people's lives like comets, in fire and ice, and though their mark had been irrefutable, the world had not ended in their absence. The broken hearts had healed, the grief been enacted with grace and put aside with equal fortitude.

Life, in its way, had gone on.

"An' been refused? Nah. When you pod girls break a heart, you do a thorough job. Didn't think I'd survive it twice."

The regret on Jess's face was painful to see – it eroded her dignity, and Zeke felt terribly sorry for her.

"I am so tired of silence," she said. "I am utterly weary of all the things I didn't say, of everything I put aside. Everyone," she amended, not looking at Iry. "And now...it's too late. Too late for any of it."

"Meaning what?" Iry asked, his tone soft, dangerous. Both of them turned to Zeke, and he was aware of the dual impact of their eyes, of these two people he had damaged so badly, who he owed so much.

"It's too late for revenge as well," she replied. "Let it go, Iry. We know where she is now."

"Let it go?" Disbelief etched every line of his face. "He murdered Aurora, he murdered our girl. Just look at him!"

She stood slim as a silver birch, unfazed by his rage. Her grey hair fluttered in the breeze. The girl Zeke had known would have met the werewolf with equal temper, with blazing words, not this stillness and poise.

"I am," she said. "Maybe you should a look little closer."

"I don't need to. I know what he is. A thief. A murderer. What the hell are you seein', Jess?"

"I see a boy who calls this home. I see him stood alone, so desperate for company he came to us. I see an empty wood, no future but death and that's little use in a cold, bitter night. Do you see a life worth ending?"

He stared at her. "Are you asking for mercy? Asking me?"

"Oh no." The gaze she shifted to Zeke was thoughtful and quite passionless. "I am asking you to let him live. Do you truly think that's mercy, Iry?"

What Zeke saw in her eyes chilled him. This, he understood, was a woman who had been shaped by her life like a sword in a forge. He'd been a fool to think her unaltered from that girl he had known years ago merely because he himself was changeless as the constellations. Jessica Arryn had looked at him and seen the loneliness and despair he had thought he'd hidden so well, and now she would leave him to it.

"You can't leave me here!" he blurted, his mind on Phi, on Avy, on the things he needed them to know but could not tell them.

He realized when Iry gave a satisfied nod that it was the wrong thing to have said.

"How did you learn to be so cruel?" the werewolf said to Jess.

"I did my duty," she answered flatly. "And this is the last time I shall do it."

Zeke opened his mouth – _and what about your duty to Phi_, he was going to yell, but his throat closed over and suddenly he was doubled up, straining for air, pain knifing him in the stomach.

"Weep all you want," Iry drawled, mistaking his agony. "That's justice for you. It hurts."

No. This isn't justice. This is Avy's injustice.

But he couldn't say anything to them, he could only wait out the pain as the crunch of their footsteps receded, as they left him and Aurora behind – as they had done many years ago, he saw now, they had left it all behind, not understanding that it was not yet finished.

X - X - X - X - X

The lake was busy in the afternoon. It was what she wanted – it was what she feared. Phi felt a ghost, as if she were too small for the vast limits of her own flesh, no matter what she told herself.

Surely she was more than her power? Surely being mer had not been such a huge part of her?

They were everywhere, old, young, in between. Families sat on the ground digging into a picnic, kids in the water, play-fighting and screeching, her father moving from group to group in quiet, amiable discourse. And Don.

He was a gleam of gold, ankle-deep in the water and laughing with his friends. His head turned – she saw the victorious curve of his smile when he saw her, saw the other boys nudge him.

It had to be done.

Each step felt like she moved further from reality, into some strange, dream-thick world. Face after face turned to her, and their greetings died on their lips – they felt it, the void inside her, as if they had sounded her out and found only her absence.

She didn't know how she looked to them – how white she was, how carefully she trod, as if she was unsure of her footing.

"Are you all…" Her father's voice died as he approached her. "Phi…?"

"It's me, Dad," she said huskily.

He reached out and took her hand, as if he didn't believe her. The incredulity in his face was astounding. "But…" He took a deep breath. "Where are you?" he asked, pitiful. "I can't sense you at all."

She stood in front of him, and for the first time she realized that he had always been on the edge of her radar, a warm, protective presence, and only now that it was all gone did she understand the magnitude of what she had done. She had stripped herself of every supernatural sense she possessed; she had made a cage of her own body, unable to reach beyond it.

She was, for the first time in her life, wholly alone.

It was devastating.

"Dad…"

She could not stop the tears that sprang to her eyes in hot pricks. No more delay.

"I'm not mer anymore," she croaked.

He gazed at her uncomprehendingly. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean," she said. She was shaking, she realized dimly, and she pressed her hands together to try and stop it. "You can feel it."

"Surely that can't be done..."

She swallowed down her tears. "The Furies."

He gasped – he spun away, hands pressed to his face. "No…oh Phi, you didn't..."

"I couldn't marry him," she said in a thin high voice, praying he would understand. "And…and now I won't have to."

He turned back, drawing in huge, ragged breaths. Everyone nearby knew something was happening, and all the chatter and babble had stilled to a watchful hush.

She saw the denial in his eyes even before he spoke. "That can't be right. You can't just stop being mer, Phi…"

She didn't wait for him to finish – her heart was tearing itself apart in her chest, she needed it to be over. She strode over to the lake, right up to where Don stood, his eyes narrowed-

He reached for her languidly, and she heard him hiss when she dodged around him, not caring anymore.

Past him, the water already gripping her skin. Further in – up to her knees, gritting her teeth against a cold she had never felt when she had her innate power to shield her from it just as blubber shielded dolphins out in the ocean. To her thighs, to her waist, to her chest, gasping at the ice of it, fed by mountain streams-

Cramp struck in her leg, and she stumbled – sputtering, into the water, flailing…

She struck out, expecting her instincts to save her – but there were no instincts left, not even the first, most base instinct she had ever known.

She couldn't swim.

Phi struggled to keep her head above the surface, as wavelets washed over her. She thrashed wildly and succeeded only in tiring herself, and suddenly she knew the primal fear that her grandparents must have felt; she was slipping under, the sun still bright above…

Underneath was murkier and colder than she could have imagined; light wavered above her, but her cramping limbs would not reach for it. The cavity inside her was matched by the ice beyond her; the two would meet surely, and then...

Her last gasp of air burned in her lungs, fiercer, seconds left, oh god, surely they'd realize-

Hands seized her. She was hurled unceremoniously over someone's shoulder, coughing and shivering. The world heaved with their footsteps before she was dumped onto the ground with a force that left her in little doubt as to who had hauled her out. She lay shuddering, and new, pitiful fright struck her when his shadow blotted out the light.

She opened her eyes. Don was bent over her in a show of concern, but rage distorted his features into a carnival mask.

What did she have left to lose?

"Marry me?" she managed to croak.

The fury in his eyes was almost worth it.

And then he spat on her. She heard gasps around them.

"Outsider," he said flatly. "You aren't mer."

He was gone. People crowded in on her, faces bright with shock, with anger, but with belief.

"You got what you wanted then," accused Cassie Atlantis, her face ugly. She clutched her son tight to her, as if Phi might corrupt him. "You never wanted to be one of us – now you aren't. Get out of here."

Other voices echoed her – she saw hostility beginning to grow in their faces, the sure knowledge that she had willingly rejected them. Others were silent, drifting away.

She scrambled to her feet, dripping, cold, her limbs aching. It should have been a victory, but she felt as if she was staggering away from a massacre, barely alive, every part of her hollow with anguish. They parted to let her by, a newly made pariah.

Her father's face was absolutely heartbroken.

"Oh, Phi," he said heavily.

"Dad," she pleaded, forlorn, "are you going to be able to forgive me?"

She saw again that man half-crazed with grief when he spoke of his parents, of the staggering betrayal of someone in his pod.

"I don't know," he said finally. "I think you'd better go home, baby."

He closed his eyes. She wanted there to be more, but he said nothing else and she saw how his hands trembled. Lonely, frightened, drained, she did not press him further.

Able only to obey, she went home. Just a girl, mer no longer, she went home to her mother who had never known how to be anything else.

_And I ran my hands o'er some strange inversion  
A vacancy that did not belong  
The child is gone._

X - X - X - X - X


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Season's Greetings all, and yet again I am on time (well, I didn't specify a time, but as I'm in the midst of retail hell right now, I feel proud of getting something up before Christmas.) This is probably the last part of Ripples before Xmas, though I will try to get up something short & festive on my LJ.

Many, many thanks to you wonderful, astounding people who reviewed last part – thank you**LifeSucksWithoutVamps, Bex Drake, ****Silvia** ,**CalliopeMused, chocolatetree**, **yukatalamia**,**yen**, **Anterrabae, Daugain**, finally, fantastically, **Enigmatic Piscean**.

As you can probably tell, I adore hearing what you think. I can handle criticism, so fire away. All adored, none abhorred.

Lyrics come from Shed Seven's _Chasing Rainbows_. I hope you enjoy reading!

Ki

**Ripples Part Seventeen**

_There's nothing I can do  
The counterparts and bleeding hearts  
And all the things that fall apart  
For you_

Afterwards, it seemed inevitable. At the time, it was merely horrendous.

The stairs squeaked under her feet asPhi trod them with a heavy heart. Some small stubborn spark guided her – the part left from days when her mother had been more than a withering woman in a bed. That part remembered careful hands which had cleaned her grazes, stories and songs, being tucked into bed and tickled and hugged.

"Phi? Is that you?"

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Yes."

"Are you all right?" The concern in her mother's voice shot hope through her.

She'd understand – she must, she did the same. Right then, Phi needed her mother more than the pod did.

"N-no..."

Her mother gazed at her as she came in. "Sweetheart, what's-"

And her words cut off. She gasped.

"Daughter of mine, what have you done?" Her eyes swept Phi and saw all that she was – and was not. "_What have you done_?"

"I had to!" The cry tore from her. "I couldn't marry him, Mom, I couldn't! I didn't have any choice, it was the only way I could break the blood-oath…"

Furious colour flooded her mother's face. It only served to highlight the sunken depths of her eyesockets. "And so you'll throw away all your father and I have worked for – the future that we have given our very lives for – that your grandparents _died_ for!"

"No-"

"Do you think I did this on a whim? Do you think I raised my daughter so that she could throw her heritage into the gutter? I thought you were mer, Delphine, I thought you understood what that meant. We are more than our own selfish wishes…"

The hypocrisy took her breath away. "Oh, yeah, ditching Laurence Ivan to run off with his best friend was incredibly unselfish. I don't know why he hasn't forgiven you. Quite a feat, Mom, almost as good as letting him get away with murder because you didn't want to believe he did it!"

"There's no proof!" her mother shrieked, the sound thin and harsh.

"How hard did you look?" Phi screamed back, clinging to the doorframe because her legs were so weak. "Or were you already staring at the future, planning out what was best for everyone but yourselves?"

"Oh, it's back to this, is it?" Marie Thetis thrust herself up off the pillows, arms quivering. "You know, I thought it was just teenage rebellion, I let your father soothe me and I let you have those unsavoury friends, and I thought that you would mature-"

"Into what? Don's wife?"

"Into, into-" Marie Thetis mouthed, seeming to struggle for the words and then with sudden, vitriolic force she spat out, "Into a leader. Never did I dream that you would turn your back on the pod. On us."

All her anger drained away then. Her mother was little more than a skeleton, her hair thinning, her cheekbones jutting out. "And what about you, Mom? You turned your back on me and Dad a long time ago. You chose to die. How can you sit there and preach at me because I've chosen not to?"

"Don't be so melodramatic. Don Ivan wouldn't kill you or even hurt you for the same reason that Laurie would never have killed my parents. We are mer, Delphine. We are separate from the rest of the Nightworld – we are unique. We were not made with blood or sacrifice but from hope and the last true magic that exists in this world. We don't kill."

Phi stared at her in disbelief. Bane Malefici's words echoed with sinister emphasis in her head, whispering _what a mighty kingdom was Atlantis!_ "You can't believe that. My grandparents-"

"Wolves," snapped her mother. "Taking a long-awaited revenge. There are things you don't understand, Phi, about the pod and the Pack-"

"Aurora, you mean," she interrupted brutally. "I know all about her. Jess told me. You can't seriously believe that!"

Those grey eyes were hard as steel. "I know it. And if you were truly mer, you would know it too. We have no capacity for violence-"

A skeptical laugh escaped Phi. "How can you be so blind? Don-"

"Is his father's son!" flared her mother.

"That's what I'm afraid of," she said quietly.

Her lips drew back into a grimace. "Laurence Ivan is a good man. A man I hurt without cause or better reason than love."

"Isn't that a good enough reason?" whispered Phi.

"It was a child's reason. I was a child." Her mother stared at her, her face severe, close to cruelty. "I wanted you to know more than I had. More than our sheltered world, so that when you came to the same choice, you would be wiser. You were going to pick up my mantle, Phi, you were going to do what I could not." Her smile was crooked and unkind. "And I suppose you have. I could never have walked away from the pod so casually."

"It wasn't casual," she said desperately. "I tried...this was the only way..."

"No. It was the only way you wanted to see," Marie Thetis corrected coldly. "I had such hopes. I saw such greatness for you. And you have thrown it all away on a churlish whim."

"You don't know what Don is," she said, forcing the words through a throat swollen and painful.

"I am tired of your hostility. It has no base better than a silly childhood accident." Marie Thetis laughed, and the sound was loud and shattering. "All the futures I saw, and never a hint of this moment. You have no idea what you have destroyed today. All I've done...everything...gone."

"Mom..." she whispered.

"You made your choice, Delphine. Now you can take the consequences, as I did." Her mother's face was stern, bleak and absolutely awful. "You are not mer. You are not one of us. You are not my daughter."

The world was slipping away from her, dropping into a dreadful abyss. "Mom..."

"You are not my daughter," said Marie Thetis slowly and carefully. "Leave. There is no future for you in this house."

She stifled a sob. "You can't..."

"Go. I don't want to look at you anymore." Her eyes held no forgiveness, no hint of mercy.

Not knowing what else to do, her life unhinged, Phi fled.

X - X - X - X - X

The first Celia knew of what had happened was when the phone rang.

Her mother held out the receiver. "One of yours," she said mildly and turned her attention back to the crossword.

Celia took it. "Hello?"

Strange, raspy breathing. And then a drained voice barely recognizable as Phi's said, "Cee?"

"What's wrong?" she said, full of dread.

There was no answer, except thin coughing sounds and then she realized that Phi was crying down the phone in a soft, heartbroken way that she had never heard before, not even over her mother.

"Phi, talk to me, please!"

Jodie Slone glanced up from the newspaper, concerned. Celia met her eyes with a frantic moue of worry and fright.

"It's…it's all gone wrong," Phi mumbled. "I'm not mer anymore, Cee, the Demon Fury made sure of that. I'm human now, just like y-you." Her voice cracked. "How can you stand the silence?"

"What?" she said, bemused.

"I can't feel them anymore. The pod – they were always there, but I didn't know. They're gone. It's all just empty and so silent."

"You're not making any sense," she said. She felt cold with fear for her friend. "What happened?"

"I went down to the lake – I had to, so they could all see that I wasn't mer, so I wouldn't have to marry Don. My dad…" A huge, shuddering breath. "Oh gods, Cee, you should have seen his face. He was devastated, and, and the way he looked at me – it was like he didn't even know me."

"Oh, Phi…"

"And th-then I went home. My mother, she saw me and, and, and-" Her words were dissolving rapidly under an onslaught of sobs and Celia clung to the phone, not knowing what to say or do. "She told me that I wasn't her daughter anymore. She told me to leave. Cee, where am I going to go?"

"Oh my god! Where are you?"

"In the payphone on the corner. I c-can't go back. I can't."

Quickly, she covered the receiver with her hand. "Mom, Phi's been thrown out of her house. She doesn't have anywhere else to go. Can she stay here, please?"

Her mother pursed her lips. "What happened?"

Celia hesitated. "It's complicated."

Jodie Slone eyed her, stern, but then she gave a small nod.

"You can stay at mine," she urged. "We'll look after you."

There was a long pause, then Phi said in a thick, choked voice, "Thank you."

"Don't be silly," she said briskly. "Want me to come and get you?"

"Please," came the timid whisper, so unlike the girl she knew. For the first time, Celia felt the knifing fear that something in Phi had been broken, something irreparable.

No, she told herself. Not her friend. Not on her watch.

X - X - X - X - X

Phi was huddled inside the phone booth, and her skin was ashen against the torrid red tumble of her hair. When she saw Celia, she stumbled out as if the merest glance might bring her to her knees.

"I'm so sorry," Celia murmured and then flung her arms around her. Phi felt chilly to the touch, as if all the life had been poured away with her supernatural powers.

"Me too," croaked Phi. She didn't say another word on the way back; she seemed lost in her own thoughts, lost in mourning.

Jodie Slone took one look at her, and all her usual severity melted away into a rush of motion and mothering. With uncanny swiftness, Phi was hustled into Celia's room and furnished with a hot drink, a freshly-made camp bed and spare clothes. It made Celia feel better to see her take it seriously.

Later, she realized that of course her mother had recognized wounds when she saw them. Hadn't she taken Aspen into her home, hadn't she adopted him into their family with just such tender, practical care?

So Celia took her cue from her mother, and the pair of them filled the air with chatter like two cockatoos, chirping brightly. They gabbled about Finn and Riose and Jo and Celia's siblings, the upcoming wedding, anything to keep Phi from her thoughts.

It seemed to work. She gave them faded, ghost smiles and sipped at the tea, and tried to comment. Celia thought she could see something of the old spark in her eyes, which no longer seemed as flat and pallid as fog.

Eventually, Jodie Slone left them alone, with an exhortation to behave, or at least misbehave quietly, and Celia let her stream of chatter die.

"Are you okay?" she said gently.

"My mom…she said these awful things. So did I." Phi took a shuddery breath. "I can't think about it."

"Your dad will talk some sense into her," she consoled. "She might just be shocked. She'd invested so much in your marriage, hadn't she?"

"You didn't hear her. And my dad...I broke his heart, Cee. I don't know if he'll want me back."

"Of course he will. They're your parents. They love you. Look at my mom! She can bite your head off if you cross her, but she'd do anything for us."

Phi raised a weak smile. "She's pretty awesome."

"Mostly," Celia said wryly. "Unless she thinks there's anything unwholesome happening. Seriously, Aspen dropped his towel coming out of the bathroom one day and she thought he was trying to sneak into Tam's room. I don't know what she said to him, but he wouldn't even hold Tam's hand for the next fortnight."

A brief lull fell, and this time, Celia waited for Phi to speak. There was more; the shadows in her eyes confirmed that.

"I can't feel anything outside my own body," Phi said softly. "It's like half the world has just been wiped out. Even when they were nowhere near, the pod were still close. Now...nothing. There's just me and the silence. How do you stand it, Cee?"

"Stand what?"

Phi raised her eyes to stare directly at her. Head on, there was no hiding her desolation. "How can you stand to be so lonely?"

"You're not alone," she said quietly. "Not while I'm here. Not while you've got us."

Phi's smile was more genuine, if tentative.

"You think Finn is going to leave you alone? You've just conclusively broken off your engagement to the one guy who might have made him back off. He's going to pester you now until you cave and give him the pity sex he so very blatantly needs."

She was relived to hear Phi's shaky laugh. "I'm kind of taken."

"Well, then," Celia said promptly, "you're not alone, are you? Especially if you're talking about that dishy soulmate of yours."

She was surprised to see new, raw fear in Phi's face. "Cee...I'm not mer. What if I'm not his soulmate anymore?"

"I don't think it works like that." She thought about it. "But there's an easy way to find out. Isn't it about time you introduced us?"

And that way, if the worst had happened and Phi was as truly as alone as she feared, at least they would be there.

Some colour crept back into Phi. "I guess I should." She hesitated. "Cee," she said in a small voice. "I'm scared."

Celia put on her most wicked smile and said, "Don't be. I promise to hold Finn back before the pair of them incinerate each other."

At Phi's reluctant chuckle, she felt that it might just be okay after all.

X - X - X - X - X

"You lying, treacherous vile…" The speaker sputtered, as if they could find no term quite fitting, then resumed with a new burst of outrage: "...underhanded overpaid insincere _toad_!"

The door crashed back with a resounding thud. Splinters flew through the air; Blue raised a hand and batted them away lazily. Chatoya Irkil strode in, her face blazing with fury.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," he remarked, unfazed. "But do carry on."

"What the hell are you playing at?" she shouted, and when he failed to look interested, a flush stormed up her face. She was quite magnificent in her anger; a tall, shadowy queen with eyes evergreen and wild as a faerie forest. "I refused Delphine Thetis!"

Slowly, as if he had all of time at his leisure, his gaze shifted up from her feet to her face.

Blue gave her a smile full of satisfaction. "I did not."

"It wasn't your decision."

"Wasn't it? Then you can hardly blame me for it."

Her power cracked on the air like a whip – and the air behind him tore open into some dark, unforgiving place. Hot, sulphurous winds streamed into the room, and where they brushed his skin, burns sprang. He didn't flinch.

"Don't toy with me, Blue," she warned. Her voice thrummed with emotion. "I'm not in the mood."

Calm, he turned to stare into the abyss that she had opened. "Odd," he remarked.

"What?" she snapped

"I thought it was supposed to gaze back."

She wore the look of someone debating whether to throw him in or not. With a sound halfway between a scream and a laugh, she chopped her hand across the air. The rift sealed.

"And I had my reasons," he continued, as if his imminent doom hadn't just flashed before his eyes. "Sound business reasons, I might add. Rather better than your sentimental ramblings."

"Sentiment had less to do with it than you think," she said tightly.

"Did it?" Now that it was safe, Therese strolled in from where she'd been lingering at the threshold. In truth, Chatoya's power had unnerved her. She hadn't known the witch had mastered walking between worlds with that kind of blasé ease. "Hello Bane. You look a little...singed."

"Telerana. You look a little…" He gave her the same familiar, ever-so-slightly disapproving look. Just to provoke him, Therese perched on the table in a way that bared most of her thighs. "Slutty."

"That's because I'm the sexy one," she retorted. "It's the price I pay. After all, you get to be the psychotic one and Chatoya wound up as the rebellious one by default. If outrageous sexual allure is my claim to fame, who am I to argue?"

"Four out of five people with taste would disagree," he said dryly. "You should come with a public health warning."

"I do," she said smoothly. "They just printed it where it was most useful."

His lips quirked. He was in a good mood then; obviously he had heard about the fireworks that the little fish had caused at the lake earlier, and Chatoya's rage had only added to his glee. Therese had to wonder what he had demanded ftom Delphine Thetis, though she could guess. "I dread to think."

"Why are you standing here making jokes?" Chatoya snapped. Therese hadn't seen her quite this livid in a long time. Life in the Furies was obviously wearing on her. "We had an agreement. He broke it."

Therese rolled her eyes. "It's what he does. The trick is making sure you wring out some concessions next time he needs a favour – which he will, eventually."

Those green eyes were astounded. "I'm not interested in 'eventually'. He's just robbed the pod of its only viable leader."

"She's still alive," Blue pointed out.

"They'll never accept her."

"Won't they?" He shrugged. "More fool them. She may not be mer, but she's still a Thetis."

"Meaning what exactly?" demanded Chatoya.

He reached out – tangled her hair in his fingers with a faintly dreamy look in his eyes that Therese would not have imagined she would ever see where no blood had been spilt. "Meaning you should have done your research. Or at least spoken to Ryar."

"Ryar?" She hissed, a low feral sound. "So that was how you got around it."

"Mmm." He eased closer to her. Therese couldn't help but feel as she was intruding on a private scene. "My witch-"

Therese wasn't sure who was more surprised when Chatoya stepped pointedly back from him. "Oh, I don't feel like being yours for a while."

The malice in her voice was bladed. And from the sudden, blank glaze in his eyes, it struck home. "And whose will you be, my witch?"

Well, thought Therese. That was certainly a revenge she could never take. But then, she wouldn't risk the consequences.

"Oh, I'm not sure it'll be my decision," Chatoya said mockingly. "So whoever it is, you can hardly blame me, can you?"

"Yes."

That one word was like a tomb slamming shut. But credit to her, Chatoya held her ground even though her face paled. She didn't say another word before she left. She did not look back, and his eyes never left her. Therese suspected that his thoughts would follow her long after she was out of sight.

It was an apt revenge. She just wasn't sure it was a particularly wise one.

X - X - X - X - X

"We'll wait here," Celia decided. The lake wasn't quite visible from this part of the road, and they could relax on the grass while they waited for Phi. It was a balmy night, not even a breeze to carry a private conversation to them. She doubted that would stop Finn trying to listen.

"Here?" grumbled the paranoid friend in question. "It's miles away."

"That's the idea," Jo muttered, sitting herself down. Her eyes glinted in the moonlight. "Go on, Phi, we'll make sure he doesn't intrude."

"I wouldn't intrude without good reason!" Finn said indignantly. At their disbelieving looks, he thumped onto the grass sulkily. "We just have different definitions of good. Right, Ri?"

Riose looked alarmed. "Don't drag me into your protection racket. I didn't crash Cee's last date on the grounds that Mark Dietrich's eyes were too close together."

"They were! He's shifty as hell!"

"Maybe that was what I liked about him," Celia said sharply. "Sometimes it's okay for guys to be up to no good, Finlay."

"Sometimes," Jo put in throatily, "we're up to no good too."

"Fine!" Finn flung up his hands. "Go, Phi, I promise not to interrupt until this lot let me."

She nodded – she'd been so quiet, and Celia could see how nervous she was. In the faint grey light, she seemed pale as alabaster. "I'll come and get you." She licked her lips. "Here goes."

"It'll be okay," Celia reassured her. When she saw Riose's arched eyebrow, she glared at him until he looked suitably optimistic. "Go."

When Phi had become a silhouette merging into the gloom, Jo ventured softly, "You sure about that one, Cee?"

"Yes," she snapped. It had to be fine. She wouldn't admit the possibility of failure.

X - X - X - X - X

Zeke was waiting by the lake as he always did, a campfire crackling away merrily. When he glanced up, his eyes had the same fierce orange gleam, but his smile seemed dimmer, muted. Fear shot through her – he had already felt it, he knew it was wrong, oh gods...

"Phi?" He got up, his hair catching gold and red in the firelight. "Are you okay?"

She took a deep breath.

"I'm not mer," she said huskily, and all her fear swilled in her stomach. Not mer, maybe not his soulmate...

His eyes widened. "I didn't know anyone still knew that spell."

Her arms had somehow wrapped around her of their own accord, as if she stood in a bitter winter wind. "The Furies do."

The mention of them didn't seem to faze him. He let out a sigh and muttered, "Figures."

This was not how she had expected the conversation to go.

"Most people go for knee-knocking fear," she ventured.

"Do they?" He looked slightly bemused. "Well, I guess most people can't just vanish in a puff of smoke."

"You've...run into them?"

"Now and then. They tend to get kind of confused when they meet me. I think it's the whole being virtually invulnerable thing. You want the definition of surprise, try rematerializing right after some guy thinks he's just decapitated you."

She tried to smile, but it came out wobbly. "Zeke..."

He stilled, merriment gone. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not mer. I…I don't know what else I'm not." There. She'd said it. But the fear wasn't gone – it was there, bigger, brighter, taking her over with voracious speed and suddenly she was fracturing, tears filling her eyes and she was so alone, so empty...

His arms were warm, steady - he was simply there and gentle and asking nothing of her at all. His hand cupped her head, stroking through her hair and she could bear it no longer; tear-blind, her world water and salt, she kissed him.

And when their lips met, she felt the familiar pull of lightning, of sparks fizzling between them and held back by mutual choice, and she sank into the kiss with relief, she sank into him, into his arms and every sweet, intense point of contact between their bodies.

She was not alone.

And then he quietly kissed the tears from her cheeks, kissed her eyelids, the corners of her mouth, and she could feel the heat in his hands, driving away the cold inside her.

"I thought…" she whispered.

"You're not getting rid of me that easily." She felt his smile against her mouth before it slid into another kiss, soft as rain. For a moment, none of it mattered – only that they were stood there and kissing and it was entirely right and sweet and shivery-

Someone coughed loudly and pointedly.

With a squeak, Phi broke away and spun to see Finn stood there with his arms folded. Behind him, the other three were obviously sprinting to catch up.

"He tricked us," gasped Celia as she came to a halt. "Sorry."

"Um. My friends," Phi said weakly. "They wanted to meet you."

"I wouldn't go that far," growled Finn.

"Most of us want to meet you," Celia said, neatly stamping on Finn's foot as she strode past. "Sorry. Phi was going to come and get us."

"And now it seems like we've come to get you," purred Jo huskily. "Don't worry, darling, we don't bite. Well. Only on request."

"Jo," protested Celia.

"Just kidding," she said lightly and moved past him to sit beside the fire. "We've come to vet you."

"Is that another joke?" Zeke said warily.

Finn shoulder-barged past, giving him a glare that combined brotherly protectiveness with homicidal intent. "No."

Zeke eyed him with something close to amusement. "Want to arm wrestle?"

The witch looked startled. "What?"

"I thought we were doing territorial machismo." Zeke gazed at him innocently. "I didn't bring beer, so cracking them open with our teeth is out, and there aren't any cars to hotwire and race, which leaves arm-wrestling."

Finn stared at him with narrowed eyes. "Well, you're less stupid than every other guy she's dated."

"The two that you didn't scare away," supplied Riose helpfully.

"I still don't like you," Finn informed Zeke. "I think you're even dodgier than the butler in a whodunit, and you're not as well-dressed."

"I'll take that backhanded compliment in the spirit it was given," Zeke said mildly. "And you must be Finn."

Phi covered her smile. She felt steadier about him, as if he anchored her somehow.

"I'll take it my brand of roguish good looks gave it away," Finn said loftily.

"I think your outright paranoia gave it away," Celia interrupted, squinting at Zeke. "Well, you're cute, but you don't beat Mr J."

Bemusement was Zeke's only response. "Who?"

"Our gym teacher," sighed Riose, seating himself around the fire. "He's a brawny shapeshifter and Celia has a bad case of what my mother calls damp knickers about him."

He sounded slightly grumpy, Phi thought. Still, it was past midnight and he was awake, which would account for it.

"Your...mother says that?" Zeke said warily. "To you?"

Ri rolled his eyes. "Unfortunately. Believe me, I've told her I don't want to hear it. I'm Riose, by the way, and Miss Suggestive Comment over there is Jo."

"I guessed." He glanced over at Phi, and she felt the electric shock of meeting his eyes. "I suppose you know who I am."

"Phi said Fireblade made you," remarked Riose into the tense silence.

"Yes, but don't hold that against me." He grinned ruefully. "I didn't have much choice in the matter."

"And she said you were a gift for a woman."

"Yes."

"So that must make you Avarice ap Sangager's toy." The firelight played eerie tricks with Riose. His eyes were black slits surrounded by flickering orange that gave spooky animation to his face. "Among other things."

"Wait, Avarice ap Sangager," interrupted Finn. "I've heard of Ryar, and of course Sangager was the poor bastard that the Soulless King usurped, but who's Avarice?"

"The second daughter of Sangager," Zeke supplied. "My owner."

"Is that all?" Riose said skeptically.

"I thought I loved her once. I was young and stupid. And she was a charming woman when she wanted to be. She promised me freedom. Gods only know what she promised herself. Lies, all of it. She became bitter – impossible to love, but very, very easy to hate." She heard the glimmer of anger in his voice. "The Burning Times destroyed her."

She had known something of this story; the woman's name had been the only detail he had omitted, and no wonder. Avarice ap Sangager. A dragon princess – that was how he had known Ryar. It made sense when she thought about it: who else would Fireblade have made such a gift to except royalty?

"So how have you spent the last thirty thousand years then?" Riose said with seeming nonchalance.

"Drifting. Trying to find somewhere I could live." His eyes shifted to Phi and she felt warm under them. "And then I came here."

They fired questions at him – Finn and Riose mostly, probing his past, his personality, his intentions. Most of it Phi knew; some surprised her, and she felt resentment at her friends, as if they were stealing the secrets he had been saving up to tell her on later nights. Celia was content to observe; Jo seemed indifferent, though occasionally she would glance up and Phi would see some brief icy echo of Therese in her eyes, more than ever she saw in Riose.

"And Phi?" Finn fired at him suddenly. "What's she to you?"

"My soulmate," Zeke said. "I thought you knew that."

"Not good enough," said the witch flatly. "That's not an answer. That's what she is – not what she means to you."

Zeke was silent, and then he looked straight at her, and Phi caught her breath at the intensity in his eyes which gleamed like fire, like the sun. "You're fierce and you're stubborn and you're impulsive in a way that's a little scary. You never give in on an argument, no matter how stupid it is."

All of it was true, but she couldn't help bridling a little. It surprised her to realize how much he did know her, how much she had revealed of herself in those long, whimsical conversations – more than she had given away in the breathless heat of embraces.

And then she realised that she knew him just as well. Dreamer, she would have said, hiding under a cynic's guise. Hesitant, maybe fearful, but unwavering in any commitment he gave. Wise enough to laugh at the danger of his slave life and smart enough to learn from it – and yet still imprisoned by it, clinging onto a past long gone. A boy of deep, slow, sweet emotion.

And hers. Most of all, hers.

"But..." he said in a voice that was soft, intimate as if they were alone, "but you're so passionate about everything you do. It all matters to you. You're so alive. And I'm still amazed that you'd even look at me."

She hid her smile in the drawn-up wall of her knees, but all of them looked thunderstruck. Except Finn, who said sourly, "Join the club, firestarter."

"Well, that's enough for me," Celia said, a smile teasing her mouth. "Ri?"

"Um." The vampire looked flustered. "Yep. Good enough."

"You can keep this one," Jo declared. "Finn? Are you planning to get over it anytime soon?"

The witch's mouth twisted. "I'm deferring judgment."

Jo sighed. "That'll do. So, Phi, what now?"

"I've broken the blood-oath," she said softly, "but you didn't see Don's face when he realized. I don't trust him. I don't think it's over. My parents...my mother…he won't forgive them. And he's up to something with the Pack, but I don't know what."

"We know someone who might though," Jo said thoughtfully. "That wolf boy who helped rescue you."

"Sam," Phi said, recalling his kindness.

"I can find him," offered the wildcat. Her teeth gleamed. "I'm the only one who's got a reason to be on the Ghost Roads."

"I can watch the lake," Riose said quietly. "And Cee and Finn could watch your house between them. We should see any trouble coming."

"What about Phi?" demanded Finn. "Who's going to look after her?"

Riose glanced at Zeke. And then he said, "I'm going for the person who has the most to lose if she dies. After all..." and his voice had a certain hardness to it, almost cruelty, "you can look forward to almost certain madness, unending despair and a lifetime's supply of guilt."

"I don't think I'm the best choice," Zeke said, to her surprise – and then he winced, as if something had stung him.

"Why not?" Celia asked, sounding as startled as Phi felt.

"You have families who can help." His voice was strained. "People who'll notice if you get hurt."

"None of us can turn ourselves into gigantic murderous infernos," Finn said flatly. "Not that I'm saying that's a point in your favour."

"We don't want our families brought into this," Celia said, her eyes pained. "My mom – she'd die for us. And that's the problem. If this goes bad, she might have to. Same for Finn's family, Riose's-"

"Don't include mine," Jo said abruptly. "They wouldn't die for me. But I wouldn't ask them to. You – look, don't take this the wrong way, but we can ask you to die for Phi. And you know what? I bet you think it's a fair price."

Something solidified in his face – he was stern, young, terrible in that moment. "Yes," he said, and for a crazed moment Phi wanted to shout at him to take it back, not to mean it...

But it was just words. Nothing more.

"No one's going to die for me," she said. "We're going to make sure it doesn't happen. There's got to be a way to stop Don."

Jo raised a clawed hand. "One swift blow to the throat-"

"Another way!" she insisted. She had made her sacrifice – surely it was enough. When Don saw how her parents had reacted, when he knew she was truly outcast...she had to be the one he took revenge on. Only her. There was no reason to hurt her parents now, none at all. "We need..."

And suddenly it came to her. Deadly, fraught...but the only way.

"We need to trap him," she said. "And we've got the perfect bait."

Each of them understood what she meant. The uproar was instant. Finn was on his feet shouting, and heat haze rose from him to ripple the air; Celia had her hands clamped to her mouth, Jo glared, Riose only groaned and toppled back to stare up at the dark sky and Zeke...

He didn't have to say anything: he shook his head once. She saw the fear in his eyes, vast. But despite it, she knew that she was right. It was the only way to be sure.

After all, what would Don Ivan want more than her?

"You are not making yourself bait for the Podfather!" shouted Finn, hovering on tiptoe in his rage. "That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard!"

"Hear me out," she began.

"I don't need to hear you out! Nothing is going to make this less insane!"

"For once, I agree," said Jo, frowning. "Phi, Don's got an army of wolves. If he shows up with them, you're mincemeat."

"Especially now," Riose said bluntly.

The words stung. For a few minutes, she had been able to forget the void inside her, the world that seemed so far distant now.

"So you think we should just wait until he does whatever he's gearing up for?" she demanded. "In case you've forgotten, I just broke a blood-oath. What if he...if he tries to kill my parents?"

"I thought the whole point of the Furies was that he couldn't?" Finn said tautly.

"No. The point was that he shouldn't. But…you didn't see his face when he found out." She swallowed. "He's dangerous."

"Then we'll watch him," Riose said flatly. "Stay with Cee in the day, make sure you stay in crowds – he won't dare do anything there. And at night, Zeke can protect you."

"From outside the house," Finn inserted sharply. Phi resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

Riose sat up, his eyes thoughtful. "No. That's too risky. It has to be from inside."

Finn made a strangled noise.

That roused a groan from Celia. "Ri, there's no way my mom-"

"Who says she has to know?" he said quietly. "He's fire, isn't he? You have a candle in your room. I've seen it."

Celia gazed at him, then turned her eyes to Zeke. "You can do that?"

"Well, yes," he replied, throwing Phi an anxious glance. "It's not what you'd call comfortable, but I can do it."

Her eyes went wide. "Wow."

He grinned, abashed, as if it surprised him that anyone could think it so extraordinary.

"That frees up me to keep an eye on Don," Riose continued, and in the dim light, his face had a ferocious cast. "Jo can chase down our wolf and find out what's going on with the Pack. Finn can keep an eye on your mom, Phi, check who comes visiting."

It all sounded so reasonable. But a small, shadowy part of her heart whispered that it was too neat, that she had sounded the sullen depths of Don Ivan's malice and knew that he would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Whatever they were. Whoever they hurt.

But she could find no rational objection, and so she nodded reluctantly.

It felt uncomfortably like a mistake.

_I don't keep my secrets there;  
I hide them everywhere  
I could deny  
But I'll never realise  
I'm just chasin' rainbows all the time_

X - X - X - X - X


	18. Chapter Eighteen

It's 2008, which is scary, and I'm only a smidgen late, which isn't. Apologies that it's been awhile - this is my first day off, Christmas aside, since mid-December, so I've been a little burned out.

Many, many thanks to you most brilliant, radiant and generally awesome heralds of the new year - thank you **chocolatetree**, **CalliopeMused, Yen**, **Bex Drake**, **Silvia**, **tracing-tt, Queen of Slayers, Enigmatic Piscean, LifeSucksWithoutVamps, mandy**, **beanysnake, Lethe,** and last but very definitely not least the glorious **Shelli**.

I love hearing what you think, and I can take criticism. Honest.

Lyrics come from Tom McRae's 'Keep Your Picture Clear'. I hope you enjoy!  
Ki

**Ripples Part Eighteen**

_You talk just like a diplomat  
But hide the gun behind your back  
And leaders need a bloody war  
Congratulations – this is yours_

Even in the dim light, she can tell he quivers with barely restrained rage. In his impetuosity and his impatience, he reminds her of Fireblade, and her magical vision makes him into that old idol for a few moments, magnificent.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Don Ivan demands. The brief illusion is shattered – she sees the petulant twist of his mouth, the youth and the disgust in his eyes. "She isn't pod. I can't marry her!"

Part of her wonders if she chose to support the wrong member of the mer. _True._

"How am I supposed to win the Elders without her?" he snarls. "She's the key to those-" Brief lucidity grips him: his eyes focus upon her withered form and he changes what he was about to utter so smoothly she barely notices. "-old barnacles."

_Hush, child._

The command is carried on a lick of power, enough to silence him. He bows his head in a show of docility, though the anger is still taut along his shoulders and arms.

_ All is not lost – far from it. Delphine has only weakened her position She has spurned you all, declared you nothing to her. I think you'll find even your precious Elders are offended_. _Marriage was the easiest way to bind her to you when she had power of her own. Now she is human, friendless, outcast. You no longer need such...sweet methods of persuasion, Poseidon. _

She sees the bright, brittle hunger grow in him. He has a love of pain, this one. It is what drew her to him all those years ago and what kept her watching, patient, as he grew into his cruelty and his ambition until she was ready to call him here and make him hers.

_ Make her fear you,_ she whispers. _ She thinks she has escaped the oath – prove her wrong. _

"Kill them?" His voice is husky with desire.

She considers, but only briefly. _Her father tonight. Leave her mother for now – she is weak enough, and killing both will lose you any leverage with her. _

That will come later, when she has the girl in hand. Laurence Ivan will see to the second death, in his love and his hate which have only become more intense with the years.

"What about Phi?"

She wants to wince at his crudity. Truly he is blind if he cannot see Delphine Thetis's importance. _ No. She must be kept alive. I require her. _

His lips part, his tongue slips over them. "And when you're finished with her?"

_ She is yours. _

There's a chance the girl might survive him, she supposes. But it's probably better if she doesn't.

His smile is savage, beautiful, and she catches her breath and dreams he is Fireblade. It is not enough. It never was.

But Fireblade is dead, Ryar is dead, she alone survives and she would have back all they took from her in their vicious lover's war. That, only Delphine Thetis can provide her with.

X - X - X - X - X

Ryar knocked softly on the door of the Thetis house. She wore an innocuous face, ignoring the unfamiliar feel of it; she was merely another petitioner at the oracle's threshold. When no answer came, she tried the door. Unlocked. Marie Thetis was used to visitors, then.

She slipped in with light feet, like a sea breeze come to stir the curtains.

The room had the faint and noticeable scent of long illness. Despite that, Ryar could see the care behind it: the rose-tinted, gentle light that muted Marie Thetis's too-bony face, the heaps of pillows, the fresh flowers and chairs drawn up beside the bed.

"Dan, is that-"

Then Marie Thetis saw her, and she gasped. A strange reverence came over her; she had the ethereal look of a saint waiting on ascension. "Have you come to take me away?"

"No."

"But you are Ryar ap Sangager."

"The same, for my sins," she answered ruefully.

Marie Thetis was not one to delude herself. Her hope was replaced by comprehension, leaving her haggard with pain. "And alive."

"Yes."

They eyed one another, two woman ages apart, sprung from the same source. Then Marie Thetis said, "I'd like to hear how you escaped death. Maybe you could give me some tips."

"I was hoping to do more than that." Ryar ran a professional eye over her. "I did not give the mer all my power."

"I don't think even a healer as great as you can help me," remarked Marie dryly. "I have nothing to fear from death."

"None of us do," she replied. "That doesn't mean you should throw away all that precedes it."

That bitter smile drew the skin tight on Marie's bones. "I haven't. Though someone obviously disagrees if they went to all the trouble of finding you. Who was it?"

"Your daughter."

The smile snapped off. "She is no longer my daughter."

Ryar inclined her head. "I disagree."

Sudden, furious realization dawned in Marie Thetis's face.

"I have you to thank for that, don't I? You made us what we are – who else could have undone your work?"

It was neither the time nor the place to say that at least one spell existed which was equal to the task. She had merely been the most convenient solution to Blue Malefici, and Ryar had no doubt that the outcome would have been the same if she was still dust in her watery tomb. "It was what she wanted."

"She is a child! Her wants change like the weather!"

Ryar thought of that pale, determined young woman she had met – who had gambled on the whim of Blue Malefici and faced all before her despite her fears. "Most people do not approach the Furies in a fit of temper."

"The…the..." Her hands clutched the bedspread. "No."

"You didn't know," she said gently.

"The Furies." It was a harsh whisper. "You're part of the Furies?"

"No. But they asked, and I answered. It was right."

"Right? Right to destroy us?" Her face was all bones and bemusement. "She was my only child."

"She still is."

"In genetics, I suppose. In blood," Marie Thetis said in a thick voice. "And we are mer – blood has never been thicker than water to us. You ensured that. All we are is your power - water."

"No," she said quietly. "Not all."

"All that matters."

"The smallest part of what matters!" cried Ryar. "Don't you understand how much more you have become? Look at all you have – family, friends, community, children. Are you so eager to throw it away?"

"I have devoted my life to protecting it," Marie said coldly. "I thought you would approve. I've used your gifts as best I could. It's no fault of yours that prophecy carries a penalty."

Ryar gazed at her, momentarily speechless. She could not blame those early mer for erasing Atlantis from their history, but now she began to see how much else had been lost along the way. "It carries a penalty for a reason."

The grey eyes widened. "You..."

"I spent my life looking for a better future," she said in a low, fierce voice. "I gave up everything in the end – all my joy, my love, my hope, everything that is the beginning of wonder. I did not want you to make the same mistake. Why do you think prophecy has a price? I wanted you to make the right choice – to live now. To live freely, without the future haunting you."

The woman recovered with formidable speed; her chin lifted. "It has haunted me so that it must haunt no one else. My pod has lived free because I did not."

Ryar could feel no anger at her tone; only immense weariness. She was reminded too sharply of old ghosts, just as defiant, just as haughty. Just as condemned.

"I knew a man as proud as you once," Ryar said softly as her hands flickered, weaving magical webs about that raddled body.

"And will you give me some gibberish about pride and falls? In case you haven't noticed, it's a little late for warnings."

"Yes," acknowledged Ryar as she drew back her spells with their grim news. "You have already wasted your days wishing for a better future."

"Wrong. I have _made_ a better future. As you did. Hardly a waste."

"What I made was a choice, and I left others to make their own. I couldn't see a future that held any joy – and still I chose, hoping. I didn't expect anyone to follow me. I didn't expect to start a revolution."

The woman's eyes were puzzled. "Why then?"

"Because I could not know everything," she answered gently. "Every second changed the future – who can say what might strike us in the next moment – a comet, an earthquake, even an idea. Nothing is certain, not even death. And so all I could do was to choose, and hope it was enough."

Silence. Then Marie Thetis said in a very calm voice, "My death is certain enough."

"Yes. Is it what you wanted?"

A raw, terrible emotion tore open in her eyes. Grief so profound Ryar had to look away. "It was what I needed. What they needed too."

"I think there are people who need you alive. Your husband. Your daughter-"

"She is not my daughter." The woman turned her head away. "She has severed herself from our future."

"No. She is no longer mer. That isn't the same at all." Very slowly, Ryar laid her hand on the woman's thin shoulders. She could not heal her, but she could at least ease some of the pain which crouched inside her body like a monstrous spider. "Marie...think about it. She needs you."

Ryar could not help but think of the long, scorched days when she had been alone, fleeing across her broken world with nowhere to go. The terror of it was still a potent memory; the nights huddled in on herself, the days searching the horizon for any glimpse of life at all, finding only the empty, denuded sky and her own despair.

"Please," she said, unable to hear the pain in her voice. "Don't leave her alone."

Ryar lifted her hands – and Marie Thetis caught them with a surprisingly strong grip, her face soft with compassion.

"This man," she said slowly. "This man of great pride that you spoke of. Who was he?"

"My husband," she said, and still the words brought a painful lump to her throat. It was hard to erase that old, mistaken love: a child's idolatry, a fool's dream. But love nonetheless, for all its flaws.

"And how he fell," she whispered.

She could stay no longer; she eased out of Marie's grip. Yet as she left, she glanced back.

Marie Thetis had her eyes closed, but just before she pulled the door shut, Ryar thought that something gleamed under her lashes – gleamed and fell, a single bright tear.

X - X - X - X - X

As evening slid in, furtive activity was taking place in Celia's room. Celia had her back flat against the door in case her mother should materialize.

Leaning out of the window, Phi waved. "Quick," she whispered.

A stream of smoke slid past her into the room and formed into Zeke, who looked a little astonished to see Celia pressed up against the door as if it was going to give way.

She gaped at him. "That is incredibly cool. Phi, you didn't mention he could fly."

"It's not exactly flying," he said. "More...drifting. And it gets really nasty if someone accidentally inhales me."

Phi blinked. "Has that happened?"

He shuddered. "Only once."

"That's the downside of superpowers," Celia said firmly. "Even for boys who happen to be literally red-hot lovers."

Phi couldn't help but blush, and saw matching colour in Zeke's cheeks.

Celia wore a particularly evil grin. "Just keep it clean while you're here. I have to sleep in here too, and my mother knows if you're even thinking of nefarious deeds." She paused. "Well, mostly. She still thinks it's cartoons that Billy's looking at inside those comics. Now face the wall, Zeke, and think of pure things. Phi and I need to change for bed."

"Why don't I just go out of the room-"

"No way!"

"Not a good idea," added Phi. "If her mom catches you, we're all toast."

"I'll evaporate," he offered. "She'll think it was a trick of the light."

Celia snorted. "She will not. Do you seriously think she doesn't know about the Nightworld?"

"If she knows, why are we going to all this trouble?" he asked, sounding bemused.

Celia and Phi exchanged glances. It was hard to explain to someone on the outside, someone who didn't have human friends, who didn't understand how divided the Nightworld had become, even in the supposed safe haven of Ryars Valley.

"Because as long as she pretends she doesn't know, she's safe," Phi said finally. "Just by being who we are, where we are, there's always the possibility that someone with a grudge might come looking for us. Riose is from an old lamia family – his mom left without their permission, and one day his father might decide he needs an heir."

And his sister was a Fury. One of her enemies might decide they needed a hostage.

"Finn's dad got into something bad when he was a kid," she continued. "He backed out, but he had to run here. Someday he might get followed. When you live forever, you can afford to take your time over revenge."

Celia had gone very quiet, her lips pressed together. This was the side of the Nightworld that she didn't like – that in many ways, she didn't really believe in. She hadn't seen enough of the savagery under the shimmering veneer to know as the rest of them did. They all took pains to keep it that way.

"Jo got changed illegally. The boy who did it – well, she's the evidence of his crime, isn't she?" She didn't know how bitter she sounded, nor how hard her face was, stone against the evershifting tangle of her hair. "And me."

"And you," he echoed, his voice terribly gentle.

"I've got Don after me. If he thought he could use Cee to get to me, he would."

"He won't," Zeke said quietly. "No one's getting past m-"

"Oh my god!" Celia screamed, and Phi whipped round to see a pale flash of motion at the window – her stomach dropped away and-

Suddenly the glass was eclipsed by a sheet of impassable flame, hurling light into the room. Fire poured from Zeke's palms, and even his body seemed mutable, rippling as if he could barely hold onto human form. Still, his face was grim and determined.

There was commotion outside – an all-too recognisable yelp, a series of resounding thumps, and then an ominous silence.

"Stop!" Celia hissed, eyes wide, gesturing to Zeke frantically. "It's Finn!"

The fire twisted like a snake devouring itself, and vanished. Zeke looked resigned. "Don't worry. That particular trick is more for effect than for agonizing first-degree burns."

Phi ran over to the window. A ladder stretched down to the ground, where a feebly moaning shape was moving. If that was just Finn, he'd sprouted extra limbs. "Are you all right?" she called down.

A groan drifted up, then a pale oval recognizable as Finn's face appeared. "Yeah. I had a soft landing."

He was shoved onto the floor by a flustered Riose. "Yes, on me."

Phi shuffled aside as Celia came to join her, bristling with outrage. "What is _wrong_ with you?" snarled her friend. "If you need to talk to us, you know where the damn doorbell is! What the hell were you doing?"

Dusting himself off, Finn was the picture of chivalrous dignity. "Protecting your honour."

"Good job," Phi said dryly. She stamped on a mad urge to giggle. "I feel very, um, protected when you start peeping through the window while I'm changing."

"I was stopping him from ogling you!" Finn said huffily. In the background, something creaked.

"For the record," Zeke called, "I had my back to them."

"Keep it down," Celia said, turning to wave a hand at him. "If my mom hears-" There was another, louder creak. She froze. "That's the stairs!" she hissed. "Zeke, go...invisible or something! Boys, run!"

Oh no. Phi had only had to face the wrath of Jodie Slone once; that had been enough. With haste born of desperation, she and Celia bounded onto their beds. She grabbed a book and tried to look immersed but failed as before her eyes, Zeke seemed to collapse into flames that streamed onto the candle by Celia's bed, until it burned just a little brighter than usual.

"Wow," muttered Celia from behind a magazine, then the door was sharply opened.

"What on earth was that racket?" demanded Jodie Slone. Her dark, cutting gaze went straight to the open window.

Inwardly, Phi groaned.

Jodie Slone strode over and leaned out. For a moment, Phi thought they had got away with it, then Celia's mother said with deadly calm, "Hello Finlay. Is there a reason you're cowering in my roses?"

"Um..." Finn's voice floated up, sounding little short of terrified. "How did you see me?"

"It's the hair, dear." Phi half-expected frost to form on the walls, so icy was her tone. "Roses are red. You are quite a violent shade of ginger. Now answer my question."

"I...came to serenade Phi," came the quavering explanation.

"I thought I had made my feelings on impromptu sing-alongs clear last time?"

"Yes, but-"

"And why did you bring a ladder?"

"Because I wasn't going to sing this time." Finn sounded hopeful. "I was going to reenact the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. I thought it might make her feel better. You know, since her parents kicked her out. I thought she might like to hear something happy and lovey."

It was quite possibly the worst excuse in the world. She met Celia'a eyes, and saw her own disbelief reflected there.

A long, thoughtful silence prevailed. Then Jodie Slone said, "Well, it's novel, I'll grant you that. But have you actually read Romeo and Juliet, Finlay?"

"Not to the end, no."

"Ah. I suggest you do. And then I suggest you reflect on its ending, and reconsider enacting it anywhere near my house. Otherwise you'll experience the full scope of its tragedy first-hand. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal," he shouted, a definite note of relief in his voice. "Um. Sorry about the roses, Mrs S."

"I'm sure." Jodie Slone closed the window with a firm snap. Her face had a curious rigidity, as if she was holding back some emotion. "Celia, don't let me find any more boys trying to climb into your room-"

"It was one boy!" protested Celia.

"Is that why Riose was hiding behind the car?" Jodie Slone raised an eyebrow and Celia fell silent, face glum. "I'm not blind. But he isn't as entertaining a liar as the pyromaniac. Don't bother getting your allowance this week. Consider it a fee for the performance."

She strode out, but when the door slammed, Phi thought she heard something suspiciously like laughter.

"That's so unfair," fumed Celia, slumping back onto her pillows. "I'm going to kill Finn."

"Kill him tomorrow," Phi advised. "He's still got to climb out of the rosebush."

"Fine. Then I'm going to get some sleep so I can be fresh for when I murder him," growled Celia. Then she sat up, and glanced at the candle. "Thanks for not looking. And for stopping Finn from looking, the paranoid idiot."

There was no answer, but he had warned them that he couldn't talk.

"Good night," Phi said softly.

A whisper of heat brushed her, then a sound drifted into her ears, as low and soft as a dying flame. "Sleep well."

To her surprise, she did.

X - X - X - X - X

Out in the heights of the mountains, the winds were fierce and tyrannous, every step a fight against them. Still, Ryar had somehow found a quiet niche which was as sheltered as the walk there was not. Her hair was a pearly gleam in the night, her eyes dark and unreadable as she turned her head.

"It's been a while," she said in soft greeting.

"I've been busy," Chatoya said, feeling unaccountably defensive.

Her mouth curved slightly. "It was a comment, not a criticism. You spend too much time with Bane."

"So do you," she retorted.

Once, such sharpness would have made her flinch. Now Ryar only gazed out at the indigo sky, thoughtful. "Perhaps. But whether I like it or not, he is Drax, and part of me is drawn to him as much as you." She paused. "He's an insufferable devil, of course," she added with sudden soft humour, "but then, so was Fireblade."

"Did you accede to his every request too?" she said acidly.

"You know full well I didn't. Is this about Delphine Thetis?"

"Yes. I don't understand why you agreed to change her."

Ryar's smile was gentle, full of familiar regret. "It was what she wanted."

"It's cut her off from her family. She's lost the protection of the pod." Chatoya had to swallow down her despair, the bitterness of failure. "We have left her alone."

"Are you sure?" She was aware of how much older Ryar was, of how much she had seen. "I thought myself alone once, but I was entirely wrong. Half a world stood behind me, and I only saw them when I had the courage to look."

"Who do you think will protect her from the pod?" she said quietly. "Don Ivan can hurt her without fear of reprisal now."

Sudden, icy light shone in Ryar's face – Chatoya saw the princess, the woman who had won the hearts of half a world. "I doubt it very much. He may be more like Fireblade's makings, but he is still water, still mine."

"Fireblade's makings?"

Ryar sighed, as if she regretted her words. But Chatoya waited, a dim memory of Bhari's tickling at the back of her skull. "He was the reason I knew I could make the mer. He was always looking for new weapons, that husband of mine. But his first making was just...curiosity, I think. To see if he could. He took some of his power, gave it shape, soul, mind – and life." Her laugh was bitter. "And then enslaved him, and gave him away like a gift because he was flawed."

"Flawed?"

"He made Zeke with emotions, with character – and with free will. When he turned out not be...amenable to warfare, Fireblade gave him as a gift to my sister."

"You sound like you knew him," she prompted.

Her smile was genuine and warm. "I did. He was a friend. We were slaves together in Sangager's court even though he wore chains and I wore jewels. When the war came, Fireblade decided to improve on his creation. He made more, twisting fire into flesh, but he changed almost everything about them – left them empty of anything except hate and rage, possessing no will but his."

Yes. Bhari could remember seeing them: things that glowed as if the flames were barely contained in their skin, dead-eyed, lips slack, waiting on their next deployment. And she remembered praising them.

"He sent them to kill – they burned the land, burned so many." Ryar shivered. "And when we thought the worst was over, there was nothing but ashes and charcoal, they blazed up again." Her laugh was thick, mirthless. "He tied them to the tides, you know, so they rose again with every moon. It was a cruel joke of his, a way to teach me a lesson."

"He thought they were perfect," Chatoya said slowly, his words flowing to her from the distant recollections of the Burning Times. "The future of war, fought in a thousand undying fires."

"I thought I could do better. I thought I could make something gentler. All I did was make a weapon of water." She smiled grimly. "And of them all, Delphine Thetis is closest to the dream I once had."

"She isn't you," Chatoya said levelly.

"That's exactly what I hoped," Ryar answered.

"But I don't see how you can protect her. She's made herself human, Ryar. She doesn't have any powers. And her friends – look, Riose Orage is dangerous, and the wildcat might be too, but the rest of them are harmless."

Ryar didn't answer for a moment and beyond their niche, the winds howled out like a pack of wolves, hunting on the air. "She has my protection, Chatoya. She may not be mer, but Don Ivan is. I've bound his powers – he's mer by virtue of his blood only."

"And if he uses force?"

Her eyelashes hide her gaze like black mesh. "Then she has friends."

"I just don't know if that will be enough," Chatoya confessed. "I can't get involved in this. If I take a hand, it's an invitation for Blue and Therese to call open season on the pod. At the moment, it's entertainment, nothing more. I can't let them see that it matters."

She didn't know what Ryar saw in her face. Some of the strain she felt, perhaps. Whatever it was, the Drax's cool touch on her shoulder had the feel of comfort and benediction. "I can. I'll look after her, Toya. She's still mine too."

"How?" Chatoya said.

Ryar didn't answer, or at least, not directly. "I thought the Burning Times were done, but they're still hanging over us, aren't they? They still haunt us, even now. I won't have her haunt me too."

They sat then in companionable silence for a very long time while the world wailed around them. Two women, so very different, so very similar.

X - X - X - X - X

The next afternoon brought a grim gathering in Celia's back garden, if one amply supplied with sugar and caffeine. Zeke had agreed to guard them, and to that end a small wisp of smoke lingered around the garden gate, far from their ears.

The meeting felt curiously martial, as if they were generals discussing strategy. It was no war they fought, or at least she hoped not, only a skirmish for her liberty. But deadly serious nonetheless.

"He vanished somewhere," Riose said. "I couldn't track him."

Jo raised an eyebrow. "You couldn't track Don Ivan? Are you losing your touch, darling?"

For once, Riose didn't rise to the bait: he only looked anxious. "It's a possibility. I've never had anything like that happen to me before. It was as if he just...disappeared from my radar. Don Ivan's one of the most recognizable minds in this place, but he wasn't there all of a sudden."

"Where did he vanish?" Celia said.

"Somewhere near the hills. I went and had a look, but I couldn't sense a thing." The frustration was evident in his hunched shoulders, as if he thought they might blame him. "Something is going on, Phi, I'd swear to it."

"Okay," she said slowly. "So Don's managed to make himself invisible..."

"Or someone else is doing it for him," interrupted Riose darkly. "That's more likely."

"But who else would be involved in this?" Finn pointed out around a mouthful of chips. "He's got his pod mates, he's got the Pack, but none of them are intimately acquainted with Houdini, are they?"

"No." Riose rubbed his temples distractedly. "I don't like it, that's all."

"What about you?" Phi asked the witch quietly.

Finn swallowed down the junk food. "There's a lot of people visiting your mom, Phi. I know she's popular, but every single one of Don's little gang were in there yesterday and today. And a few of them came out with bits of paper."

Her skin felt clammy. "They're asking for prophecies," she whispered. "But they know what it does..."

"They want to keep her bedridden, then," Jo said briskly, and part of Phi wanted to fly at her for her practicality. "They don't want her to see whatever's coming."

The cold-bloodedness of it made fury rise in her veins. That was her mother, no matter the differences between them, not some toy to be deactivated in the course of Don's schemes.

"Then they haven't thought of us, have they?" she said, her voice flat and hard. "Did Sam tell you anything, Jo?"

"Nothing concrete." The wildcat grimaced. "He's been kicked out of the Pack. Don didn't like his attitude. Don wanted them to do something and Sam asked too many questions. Phi, darling..."

She could see the wariness in Jo's eyes, bright and bitter-green as lime.

"What did he want them to do?" she demanded.

The wildcat closed her eyes, as if she didn't want to see any of them. The words slipped out on a sigh. "Kill your dad."

And there it was. Suddenly the world clicked into place and she saw that there was no longer any world where she and Don Ivan could coexist; not now that he had aimed all his ambition and all his malice at the heart of her family.

Her voice was queerly emotionless. "When?"

"He doesn't know when or how, just that it'll be sometime soon." Jo paused. "I've never seen anyone that afraid. He said Don can do...things with his power that he shouldn't be able. He said that he nearly strangled one of the Pack without even touching them. And he said..." She licked her lips. "He said that Don _enjoyed_ it, that he stood there smiling the whole time that he was squeezing the air out of that poor damn wolf."

Well, that was no surprise, only confirmation of what Phi had long known. The crux of her fear had never been in the pain or the abandonment or the lies he told to save himself, but in the fierce grin which had opened like a crack in his face, in the satiated gleam of his eyes.

He loved pain. He fed on fear. He hungered for power. All he was could be distilled down to those things; pain, fear, ambition.

She had no idea that was she sat there as icy and white as a marble statue, that even the light lift of the breeze on her fiery hair seemed sacrilege of such terrible concentration. She had no idea how hard her eyes were when at last she had decided.

"It wasn't me he wanted then," she said. "We were wrong. It's the pod – it's my parents dead, isn't it?"

"Looks like it," Riose agreed in a soft voice.

She took a deep breath. "Everything changes then. We have to watch my parents – all of us, we have to do it. All the time. Every minute. We can't let him get to them."

"Would they believe you if you warned them?" Celia asked gently.

Her smile was rigid as iron. "No. Don's fooled them too well. And now that I'm...what I am, my word won't have as much weight with the pod."

"Hang on," Finn put in, stern although he wilted a little under her gaze. "What's this we? Not you and Cee. Same argument still stands. You're human. What's the point in you watching if you can't get word back to anyone? Me, Jo, Ri and the human torch can do it. We'll take shifts – day and night."

"They're my parents," she protested.

"We've just established Don Ivan doesn't need you. Do you think he'll care if you get hurt trying to stop him?" demanded the witch, the first shreds of temper in his expression.

Phi struggled with rage. She wanted to scream, to shout, to do anything but sit here helpless. Yet she knew they were right. She'd given up her powers – and in doing so, given up some of her control, even as she'd thought she was taking it back.

Eventually, she put her head in her hands with a groan. "You're right," she said through her fingers. "I know you're right. I just hate it."

"Phi..." Finn was gentle, the affectionate partner-in-crime of her childhood. "You think we won't get you involved if he does try anything? I know you'll want to administer the first kicking yourself. But the minute it begins, someone has to know."

He glanced with dislike over at the apparently random stream of smoke circling the gate.

"Aside from anything else," he added, "he's about the most powerful thing in this valley. I want him on our side when it all starts." He rolled his eyes. "If he stops Don Ivan I might even let him be your boyfriend."

"Let?" she muttered. "As if you have a choice."

He grinned. "I may not have a choice, but I do have intimidation and blackmail..."

At her half-snarl, it was all conceded. None of them stayed long: Finn and Zeke had already gone to find her parents, and Riose and Jo went home to sleep as the pair of them, with their handy night-vision, got the graveyard shift.

And Phi was left alone with Celia to wait and worry once more. Worse, this time it was not her own fate she waited on, but her family's. And she could not stop the dreadful, insidious thought that it was her fault – that if she had not struggled so hard, Don Ivan might not have broken free in impatience and anger.

Had he brought this on them? Was she just another child of Atlantis, sacrificing blindly to the future?

Oh, please no...

_Stay awake, the lines are drawn  
You're never right until you're wrong…_

X - X - X - X - X


	19. Chapter Nineteen

Well, hello again! This update has taken a wee bit longer than I expected, but I'm now into the final few chapters of Ripples, and having huge amounts of fun with the ending...

Thank to you most gorgeous and glorious people who reivewed last time round - thank you **CalliopeMused, Celinae, Lunair**, **Bex Drake**, **Takishia**, **chocolatetree**, **Shelli**, **Ahnkitomi, Ivvic** and last, but reigning supreme, **Queen of Slayers**.

I adore hearing what you think - comments, criticism and all else very much welcome.

Lyrics come from Tears for Fears and their lovely _Head Over Heels. _Hope you enjoy!

**Ripples Part Nineteen**

_Something happens and I'm head over heels  
I never find out till I'm head over heels  
Something happens and I'm head over heels  
Oh, don't take my heart  
Don't break my heart  
Don't throw it away_

The walk to the Thetis house was short but busy. He could tell that Finn had been bursting to speak from the moment they left; as soon as they were out of sight – and more importantly, earshot – he began.

"I don't like you, you know."

"I know," Zeke answered cautiously.

"Do you know why I don't like you?"

"Because Phi does, I think."

Finn might not like him, but it had taken Zeke no more than a couple of minutes to decide that anyone who was that rabidly protective of Phi was someone he approved of.

"No. It's not because she likes you. It's because she trusts you." He stopped suddenly and swung into Zeke's path: forced to a halt, he met those dark, hostile eyes and waited. "Do you know how long it took for Phi to trust us? Years. That pod had a good shot at indoctrinating her to outsiders and they nearly succeeded. If her dad wasn't so liberal, she'd just be another fish in the sea, so to speak."

"Not to me," he said quietly.

The witch's smile was lopsided. "She'd still be your soulmate. But I don't think you'd like what the pod left as your destiny."

He couldn't argue with that. When he thought of the pod he had known – Aurora's pod, rowdy and welcoming and mischievous, all that remained seemed mere shadows of those golden days. They had become xenophobic, locked within a tightly diminishing circle of themselves.

Worse was the knowledge that he had helped nudge them to it.

"And you just walk right into her heart. She trusts you because she learned to trust us first." There was hardly any bitterness in Finn's expression, subsumed in cold certainty. "You had better not betray her, because if you do, you break her trust in us too. And I won't have that. I'm not losing my friend because of you."

"You won't," he swore, though his stomach turned, sickened.

As if their conversation had been nothing more than an idle diversion, Finn resumed his slow saunter again. Nothing to see here, folks, nothing at all.

Unconsciously, Zeke rubbed at the burn on his thumb, unaware that it had grown as if his lies were slowly consuming him.

X - X - X - X - X

A whole anxious morning passed; an even more anxious afternoon followed. When it became obvious that her fidgeting was annoying Celia, in desperation Phi suggested a grocery run. It was evening after all – surely most of the pod would be at the lake, and the chances of seeing anyone she knew would be small.

But even such a mundane mission seemed laced with sinister omens. She saw wolves everywhere in the town, and she could swear that their eyes followed her.

The pod clogged the streets too. Their eyes most definitely did not follow her; it was as though there was only a gap where she stood, a nothing space, she a nothing person to them.

Pride made her stare at them even as they avoided her, the faces she had known so long. She glared even when the tears swelled in her throat, even when her head felt hot and tight as a furnace.

And then she met a pair of eyes that did not look away; clear, brown, and just a little shocked.

She could bear the rest of the pod's disdain. But she couldn't face Jessica Arryn, she couldn't bear to be rejected by her godmother.

Panic seized her.

"I can't stay here," she mumbled to Celia and fled into the sidestreets, leaving her human friend astonished, clutching their shopping.

"I'll wait here," Celia called, worry resonant in the words.

It stung that she had been outcast by the rest of the pod, but it was a muted pain, nothing compared to the horror in her father's eyes or her mother's violent, passionate reaction. To have it played out again by the one person who had always supported her and fought for her...

The loss struck her hard and sharp, and she pressed a hand to her mouth.

"I never thought I'd see the day when you ran from me."

That familiar voice was acerbic, and Phi raised her head to see Jess Arryn there. Her face was quite impassive, but whether it was to be rage or despair, the rejection would come.

Her cheeks were hot, her lips dry. What a mess she must have looked to her poised godmother, who'd seen so much – who'd tried to warn her.

"Oh my darling," Jess said softly. "It's true then. You silly girl."

She could only nod, and even that felt an immense effort.

"I'm not mer anymore," she said, voice scratchy.

Disappointment flashed in Jess's face, and she wanted to howl like a child.

And then those old, warm arms were around her, and she was surrounded by the scent of lavender and soap.

"Haven't you learned anything?" her godmother demanded, but it was amusement and not anger in her voice. "Did you listen to a word I said, you foolish child? Aurora chose to take dolphin form but if she'd chosen wolf form, she'd still have been mer, and so are you. Do you think you can stop being my goddaughter?"

Jess stroked her hair, gentle as if she were made of glass.

"We called the wolves mer too, you know, and they called us pack. Two words, but they mean exactly the same. Family is family. I heard what happened, and I shall be having words with your mother."

"I don't think it will make any difference," she mumbled. "You didn't see her face."

"I don't need to. I saw it the day she found her parents' bodies." Jess sighed. "That's what this is all about, Phi. She blames herself for it all – she always has. She's dedicated her whole life to making sure it would never happen again, especially to you. Why do you think she looks into the future so much?"

"She...she always has."

Jess gave a cracking laugh that echoed on the air. "Not when she was young! Oh, Alwyn tried to make her biddable, but he had no more luck with her than he did with my mother."

Phi half-smiled. Jess's tales of Helga Arryn, the pod's previous seer, had thrilled her as a child. "Really?"

"Oh yes. Marie loved her life, and she was just as stubborn as Mama. No, darling, this...obsession started after her parents died. That's the real tragedy of it all – she still blames herself, and she's so terrified of it happening to anyone else that she can't leave anything to chance."

"But she's killing herself..."

"She knows that. My mother would box her ears if she saw her now."

"I wish she could," Phi said glumly. "I asked her to stop. She told me I was being selfish."

"Of course you are. Mama was selfish as they came, bless her heart, and we loved her for it. She lived to be ninety one, and she wouldn't use her gift unless it was absolutely necessary. Alwyn used to curse her for it, and she'd curse him right back." Jess's laugh was full and joyful. "He even dared say it at her funeral when she couldn't answer back. When my father stood up to give his speech, he said, 'You're quite right, she was selfish – and I'm glad of it, because I loved that selfish woman for seventy years, and that's more than I would have had if she'd listened to you.' She had a future too, and it was just as important as all of theirs. That's what your mother doesn't understand."

When Phi dared to raise her head, she saw pride in Jess's face.

"But you understood. You chose your own way, and I'm proud of you."

"You're the only one," she said. "Everyone else thinks it was stubborn and reckless and selfish."

"Oh yes, it was all those things." That wicked smile was forty years younger than the face that framed it. "But that doesn't mean it was wrong. I warned your parents that nothing good would come of marrying you off to that Ivan boy. He's rotten inside, same as his father. They didn't believe me, of course."

If she could trust anyone, she could trust Jess. "I...have something to tell you," she said hesitantly, and quietly, as quickly as she could, she told Jess everything she knew of Don's plans: of the wolves, of the pod who were weakening her mother piece by piece, of her father.

Her godmother listened, eyes narrowed, and when Phi was done, her mouth was a grim line.

"I know it sounds crazy-" she began.

"It sounds all too sane, I'm afraid. Anyone who grew up with Alwyn would see the pattern. Your father will never believe it – that's always been his flaw, wanting to think the best of everyone. Your mother – well, she won't countenance any future she can't see." A sigh escaped her. "But there are other people who will listen. I'll speak to them."

Until relief washed over her, Phi didn't realize just how the weighty the knowledge had been. "Thank you," she whispered.

Jess touched her cheek. "Be careful, Phi. You hurt Don's pride, and if he's anything like Laurie, he can't forgive that. Keep yourself safe."

"I'll try," she said. It was all she could offer, knowing that Don was merely awaiting the moment to spring his trap as he hovered, arachnid, shadowy, poisonous.

X - X - X - X - X

In the silence of her sickroom, Marie Thetis wrote. Her hands were swollen and painful, her vision reluctant, but these letters could wait no longer. She had been composing them in her head for many years – since the day she'd held an infant in her arms, and known that she could not let her daughter make the same mistakes that she had.

She had tried to find the best way, the one that would let her daughter be a truly great figure among the pod. Yet in so many ways, so many minor details, she had failed.

And now the future lay before her like a mist. Marie was afraid to look now. The effort would probably kill her, and she could not imagine how there could be any hope for Phi.

She had failed as a mother. She had failed as a prophetess. Again.

And now her daughter was gone. All that remained was a poor empty shell who looked like her, who wouldl inherit her birthright but have no place within the pod, no way to withstand all the trials that lay before her.

As she lay there, pale and slight as the waning moon, death seemed only a breath away. Her future was pared down to the thinness of a shadow.

These were the last words she would ever write. Marie didn't need an oracle to tell her that.

So she wrote her letters, apologizing, pouring forth the mistakes she had made, and the one great lie that she had kept in her heart through all the years because she had not wanted her daughter to relive her own caged life, riddled with mistakes like bullet-holes.

X - X - X - X - X

When Phi came back to the main street, the sun was sinking lower. Her shadow stretched long and sheer across the road, where traffic mowed it down without a care.

There was no sign of Celia. That was weird.

When she saw their shopping strewn over the pavement, she knew something was wrong.

"Missing something?"

The girl appeared beside her with a swiftness that said she had been standing guard. Phi knew her as one of the Pack, and knew with terrible certainty where Celia was.

"Where is she?" she demanded. "You'd better not have hurt her."

The wolf gleamed in her wide, sharp smile. "Not yet. Maybe not at all if you play nicely."

Desperate, Phi scanned the crowds for a friendly face. Jess was gone – there was no one left she could trust. And human as she was, she could not even call out to Riose or Jo as she once would have.

She was alone.

The initial panic settled into a small, grim core. "What do you want?"

The girl linked arms with her as if they were friends and began to lead her away. "No fuss. No tricks. There's someone who wants to see you."

"Don, you mean."

"Let's not name names." The pinch of claws on the soft inside of her arm was warning enough. "Nice and quiet now."

What choice did she have?

X - X - X - X - X

As the woods closed in about her like a green sea, Phi knew that she was entirely at Don's mercy. The crowds were far behind now, although the rustling leaves sounded like distant voices.

She thought of Aurora buried under the trees and could not help but wonder if she would join her.

"Phi!"

Celia's cry jolted her into awareness. The trees stretching up like stalagmites had given way to a large, bare clearing. Her friend was sat on the ground, looking shaken but unhurt. A pair of wolves flanked her.

Relief was her overriding response, followed by hot guilt. It was her fault that Celia was here – if she hadn't got her involved, if she hadn't left her alone...

"They haven't hurt you?" she asked.

The laugh was full of mockery, and it froze her.

"That all depends on you."

Don eased between the trees, where he had clearly been waiting to make an entrance. The political part of her admired his instinctive showmanship. The rest of her wished him suddenly, horribly and thoroughly dead.

"I've done what you want," she said sharply. "You've got me here. Let her go. This is our business."

"You've done what I want so far," he corrected. The canopy of leaves strained the light to a green hue that gave him the look of some macabre totem, his beauty warped and ghoulish. "But she's an excellent guarantee of your good behaviour. And I'm not sure my wolves want to let her go."

One of Celia's guards let out a low, rasping laugh. He reached out and stroked her cheek; body rigid, Celia bore his touch with obvious repulsion, but didn't fight back. Only then did Phi see the way she cradled her hand – and the odd angle of her little finger.

"Stop that!" she snapped, taking a step forward-

The wolf girl's arms clamped around her, solid as granite, and for the first time Phi was aware of how little strength she now possessed.

"Only if you beg," Don murmured. He strolled up to her, his proximity a taunt. Pure malice gleamed in his eyes.

Everything in her rebelled against it. But this wasn't about her pride. This was about Celia.

"Please."

He smiled, but the triumph in it did not outweigh the spite. "A good try. And not enough. I said _beg_, Phi!"

She knew then what he wanted. The wolf's hold slackened: she slid to her knees in the dirt and the twigs. "Please, make them leave her alone. She's just a human – she's only here because of me. If you have to hurt someone, it should be me."

"Yes, it should," he said softly.

Before she could react, his fingers were snarled in her hair, yanking back her head to the limit of her endurance. The mere act of breathing was painful; Don seemed filtered through a haze of terror. Phi had no choice other than to gaze up, fixed, stricken.

In he leaned, close, closer until she could see her own reflection imprisoned in his pupils. "You're lucky I need you," he said in a voice so calm and quiet and gentle that his words barely stirred the air. "But I don't need the human bitch, so you make sure you behave, Phi."

"I will," she gasped, desperate now. "Don't hurt her."

"That's your choice, not mine," he said, and with a final vicious tug, let her go. She toppled to her side, her heart thunder and fear.

Don turned away. That simple act – turning his back on her – was so full of contempt it made her want to weep. He would never have dared a week ago, when she was pod, when she was the daughter of their leader and their prophetess.

"Keep an eye on them," he said coolly to the wolves. "Any trouble, Cecily's got another nine fingers."

"It's Celia," croaked her friend. It was possibly the bravest – and most foolish – thing Phi had ever seen her do. Polite even in defiance, she wasn't cowering, she wasn't crying, and she looked Don Ivan right in those empty blue eyes. "And it's seven fingers and two thumbs."

Don gazed at her, unblinking as a toad. Then he moved so fast and silkily that he was like hurled water – there was a sharp crack ,and Celia shrieked.

"Don't!" Phi was screaming with her – she scrabbled towards them in a half-crawl before a blow knocked her flat.

It was as if he had never moved. Only Celia's soft gasps shredded the air. "Six fingers and two thumbs," he corrected quite calmly. "Celia."

Phi had known him for years. She had long known of his cruelty, his arrogance, his contempt. But now she saw he had found the power to match his ambition. If she had doubted his nerve, she did so no longer. He would hurt them; he wanted to, but only the coils of his grand scheme restrained him.

With that realisation, she was very afraid of what would happen when he no longer needed her.

"I won't be too long," he told the wolves. "Phi needs to be alive when I get back."

"The other?"

Don shrugged. "Optional."

It was a warning for her and she would heed it. Across the clearing, Celia's eyes met hers, and for the first time, Phi saw new fragility in her friend, the abrupt and certain knowledge that she was human, flawed – and prey.

They had shielded her so well from the truth of the Nightworld. And maybe that was wrong.

Whether on land or in water, their desire to survive had outlasted empires and wars. Treachery, violence, secrecy, those were the languages of the Nightworld. They had learned the clumsy human tongues of care and affection, even stumbled through the complexities of love, but at heart, they were predators snarling for the hunt.

If she had still been mer, Phi could have called Jo or Riose, but she had no telepathy left. She was cut-off, alone-

No. Not quite alone.

X - X - X - X - X

In the cavity of her chest, her withered heart beats in slow, stuttering motion. Her eyes are flat and shiny as two coins, Charon's fee already paid.

But Avy's mind is bright and busy, skimming the valley as she has done so often. In her years hidden here, she has seen so much. Dragons have come and gone and never noticed the pale cobweb of her self hanging above them. Battles have been won, lost, postponed while she looked on. Countless souls have been swayed by the merest whisper of her power, nudging them here, nudging them there.

Her webs are wide and fine, her subtlety unparalleled. It has kept her thirst for life burning when it seemed there was little else to hold her.

And now her plans are dropping into place. The lake is full of the pod, but gently she lays suggestions upon them which settle like dew. One by one they find reasons to leave; family, errands, a bite to the air, a headache. The stage is clear.

The wolves are edgy. With a mother's easy touch, she soothes them. She needs controlled violence, not brutality. Briefly curious, she examines Delphine Thetis. If it was a spell which took her shapeshifting power, it was exceedingly advanced to have cleansed her so thoroughly and left no damage.

In his home, Laurence Ivan paces. He needs no meddling. A puddle of flesh beside him is the dim thing he married in apathy, a trickle of blood on her lips all the colour remaining to her. Hungry, he awaits his son's command.

They are so alike.

With fondness, she looks last to Poseidon Ivan who is so close to releasing her from the torture of age and decay. A mere brush of power over him, a glaze upon all his layers of cruelty-

Wait. Someone has made a neat, tight knot of his mer powers in a way that is impossible.

No. Not impossible. One person could do it, but...

The truth is almost beyond her, so vast is it.

Ryar is alive, and all her plans are laid to ruin. How has her sister survived? Fireblade himself swore it was her tomb – and he would not lie. He would not weep for love unless that love was dead.

Then two possibilities are left. Either Ryar has been brought back from the dead, which seems to Avy inconceivable. In dragon times, no such magic was known – and these witches, these weak children of dragons cannot possibly have discovered it.

If that is not so, the solution is clear: Ryar gave up her power before she died.

Yes. That would have been like her: the ultimate selfless gesture. She made the pod – why not go further when she realized the futility of flight and hand some desperate witch all her power?

Like the strategist of old, Avy's mind is already twisting – she will turn defeat into victory.

Her plans are not ruined. Ryar's healing ability is not contained in her bones – better, it is contained in some weak, living thing. And if they have bound Don, then clearly they have some link to Delphine Thetis and the pod.

Already she has Delphine as bait for the Thetis family as well as a tool in herself. Now the girl will act the maggot for a far bigger fish too. All Avy's dreams are wrapped up within this one small person. Briefly, she even considers sparing her before dismissing the idea as impractical.

The future hovers before her. She will be healed. She will be beautiful. Time will yield before her like skin beneath a knife, and her sister's power, which began a war, will end her long suffering.

The symmetry of it is glorious.

X - X - X - X - X

It had been by mutual agreement that they did not exploit the soulmate link. Now it was her own desperation that drove Phi to reach into that part of herself which, it seemed, had always been incomplete, which had been the source of her loneliness, the sound and the silence of her songs.

Whenever she had touched him, the pull of that link had been there – threatening to span the distance between them and then to obliterate it so that they were one. Neither of them had been willing to brave the unstoppable scrutiny of someone stood inside your soul, blowing the dust from your secrets and turning them in the light to examine their every detail. She still was afraid, but it was negligible next to the wide, dark fear of Don and all he might do.

It was like a dim path that led to Zeke; and she reached along it, fumbling because it was new and strange to her. At its end, she could sense him: a sense of energy contained, of heat and motion.

She called his name with her very being as she hovered just beyond, aware of nothing in the physical world that she had left behind.

Let him hear-

There was an immense rush of wild, bright light: and she was beside that silver sea where she had first seen him as he was, and known he was hers.

The fire which strained under his skin was perceptible here: a soft, caressing haze disturbed the air about him, and in his eyes, she saw something as ancient as the light of the pole star and far less impersonal.

He was an angel here.

Phi clutched at him. "I got it wrong."

"You got what wrong?" Zeke held her as if he thought she might shatter in his arms. "Phi, what's happened?"

"Don has me."

"No."

"You have to help us," she pleaded, trying to break through the caul of his disbelief.

"But he wants your father," he said in a flat voice. "He doesn't want you. He-"

His face contorted – against the link, sudden, immense pain shuddered and he staggered, then fell to the ground in a miserable heap.

"Zeke!"

His eyes were wide, unsettled. His muscles were braced against the aftershocks of pain that she felt fluttering against the link like wings. "It's okay."

"No it isn't!"

He was rubbing at his hand. Gently, she pried his fingers away – he blinked, as if he hadn't known he was doing it. His skin was raw and burned from the base of his thumb to his wrist, shiny with fluid.

"You're burned," she whispered. "But...you can't be."

He gazed at his hand, turning it as if he could not quite understand what he saw.

And with a slowness that seemed ominous, comprehension dawned in his face. On its heels came terrible sadness, bemusing her.

"Zeke?"

"It's just a flesh wound. I'll live." He met her eyes squarely. "Phi, there's no time to waste. I need to know where you are, what he's said." He took a deep breath, as if he was steeling himself. "Don't tell me. It'll be quicker if you show me."

She knew what he meant. "The link?"

His face was drawn as he nodded, and suddenly she felt half of that barrier gone, simply vanished. Only her resolve held them apart, pressed back the magnetic lure she felt for him.

There was no more time for shyness. With a breath, with a prayer, she gave up her isolation.

The link crashed in on her like a winter wave, and suddenly she was deluged in a smash of memory and emotion and words and colour and-

Imposing discipline upon this wonderful, disturbing chaos, she drew up the stark memory of that afternoon. It replayed in gruesome detail, and in this shared space, shared self, Phi was aware that he felt all she felt: for a moment, there was no difference between the two of them.

Don's face flashed starkly in her mind and-

And she sensed in Zeke a reaction that was entirely wrong.

"You recognize him," she whispered into the mesh that was both of them.

The silence lasted years. In it, the last of her hope burned, the brave, fearsome plea that it could not be true.

At his soft, "Yes,", suddenly pain was roaring around them. She had never dreamed such wide drifts of agony could exist, that she could know what it was to burn, to know no respite and no mercy.

Words stabbed into her, spoken by a cruel, rich voice.

_Not by word or thought or deed..._

She saw his betrayal as if it were shadowplay upon the bright walls of pain.

Zeke had been ordered to distract her and he had done it gladly for the chance of freedom. He had watched Don deal with his mistress for power and ambition. A mistress whose face was blotted out in his recollections, as if even now he sought to protect her.

_Not by word or thought or deed…_

All along, he had known. From the first time she had seen him at the lake – during the nights when he had been her solace in a world too full of grief and death, all that time he had known and he had lied.

Phi wrenched herself away, and slammed the barrier back up between them. It was too much. She couldn't bear to watch those times again, not knowing it had been a lie.

It had always been too good to be true. Yet she'd let herself be fooled because, because...

"You promised you wouldn't hurt me." The words were like ice between her lips. She sounded cold and imperious. Inside, she felt could feel despair poised, waiting to crumble her.

No. Not over him. It wasn't worth it.

She had better people to stay strong for.

Pain still battered against the link, but she no longer felt it and pretended that she didn't care if he did.

"I know," he croaked. He was shuddering, his body wracked with tremors. "I didn't have a choice."

"Didn't you?" Her mind seemed far above it all, distant as a cloud. "There wasn't one moment when you could have walked away? Not _one moment_ when you could have refused?"

His silence was her answer.

"It probably wouldn't have been an easy choice," she said without rancour or anger or anything other than the serenity of numbness. "But it might have been better than this."

"Phi..."

"You know," she began, but the words were hovering at the back of her throat and they made her voice thick and strange. "You know," she said, faster because these words were difficult. "I think I could have l-loved you."

He gave a low moan.

She could stay no longer – if she did, her heart was going to break. Don Ivan had already taken most of her dignity. Better to break under his cruelty than Zeke's treachery.

And worse, as the soulmate link folded around her like a house of cards collapsing, she knew that she had lied to him. It was all she had left to try and protect herself.

She wanted to weep. Her pride, which had brought her so far, still held, even if it was weak and skeletal and starving now. So she sat, pale, yet could not meet Celia's eyes because it was her fault; the broken line of her finger was Phi's fault, the future that waited was her fault.

She'd wanted so badly for the fairytale to be true. She had been wrong.

And that left her with the woods and the guard who breathed on her neck, whispering soft threats of the things he could do - but even that was better than listening to the discords in her heart. Better than the echo that would not fade into silence.

He had promised he wouldn't hurt her. And she had believed him.

She had given him all her secrets. She had given him all her pain. She had given him herself.

He had promised he wouldn't hurt her, and she had believed him. Here was the worst of it, worse than his lies, worse than her naiveté, because those were both gone, but this remained long after it should have been nothing more than a memory of a wish she had:

She did love him.

X - X - X - X - X

Romeo and Juliet.

Finn had taken Mrs Slone's advice and dug out his parents' dogeared copy. Not because he suspected there would be a quiz next time he went to Celia's house (which he did), not because he knew Jodie Slone would expect him to be able to defend an intelligent and informed opinion upon it (which he wanted to), but because he had felt it was far too apt.

Two star-crossed lovers.

And now that he knew the ending, Finn was afraid.

So he kept his eyes fixed on the Thetis house. Silently, he rehearsed the nastiest spells he knew. It didn't ease the trepidation he felt, or the horrible feeling that he might have to use them. He'd never used his magic to hurt anyone, but tonight he might have to.

But when he heard Zeke gasp beside him, Finn dragged himself away.

"What is it?"

He didn't seem to hear.

Finn snapped his fingers in front of his face and only then did the tiniest spark of recognition enter that weird, coppery gaze. "You communing with Phi?"

At Zeke's nod, Finn – reluctantly – left them to it.

Until, that was, he heard a low, despairing keen that made him whip around. His heart skipped – Phi, was Phi all right?

Sweat formed a film over Zeke's face – he was scrunched into a ball, but gazed up as if in supplication. His expression was one of absolute heartbreak. "No..." he moaned, reaching out as if to snatch at someone-

He twitched, and his eyes focused in on Finn slowly. But they were dazed and lost, more animal than human. "I lost her..." he whispered.

Fear was like ice in his stomach. "What do you mean lost? Is she hurt?"

Zeke was still shivering, and suddenly Finn saw that a strange patch had appeared on his face and was darkening rapidly. It had the look of a bruise, but he'd never seen anything like it. "No. Yes. I don't know."

His temper snapped. Later, he was ashamed of the way he grabbed Zeke and blasted fire into his fingertips until his touch must have felt like metal drawn straight from a forge. Later, he remembered that he'd heard flesh sizzle, but he didn't care.

Later, his own violence scared him.

But he was desperate to save Phi. "Which is it? Where is she?"

"I...I can't tell you."

"What do you mean you can't?" shouted Finn, forgetting he was supposed to be stealthy and hidden. "What the hell matters more?"

He let Zeke drop.

"I thought you cared about her," Finn snarled, all his scorn burning on his words like acid. "You're her soulmate. I thought you were supposed to love her more than life itself."

From where he slumped, Zeke stared at him like he'd just revealed a vast, astounding secret. And then clouds rose from his eyes. Only when those tiny white puffs touched Finn's skin and condensed did he realize that those were tears.

"Phi..." Zeke took a deep breath, and then a fresh set of shakes rattled him. His voice was thick and rough with pain. "Don...has...Phi."

The howl that tore from him then was like nothing Finn had ever heard. There was a grisly, crackling sound, and quite suddenly, Zeke's leg was at an unnatural angle. Blood trickled down from a cut that had opened on his neck, as if a knife had sliced him. His body was healing itself, but fast as one wound vanished, another appeared, exploding on his body like fireworks.

Finn wanted to back away. But he couldn't. "Where?"

"Doesn't matter." He raised a trembling hand, and Finn saw that blisters were opening and bursting on it until his arm ran with fluid. "Her father...dead..."

Finn was concentrating very hard on not throwing up at the sight of him. "Yeah, which is why we're here. What about Phi?"

"No..." He coughed, and blood and ashes spattered over the ground. This time, Finn did back away. "Don will use her..." More blood, accompanied by dirty grey smoke that smelt of charcoal. "To make him come. She's...the bait."

No. Oh no. "And you knew this?"

"Not at first." His teeth were black from the smoke. Then all his fingers wrenched backwards in one, awful, synchronised movement and Zeke screamed fit to wake the dead. "Not supposed to tell. An oath - her, Don-"

Suddenly it became quite clear to Finn. This was his punishment for revealing all of Don's plans. It was a hex of immense cruelty, one that would most probably end with Zeke's death or madness.

He didn't like Zeke. He had never trusted him, but he certainly didn't think he deserved this.

"Anything else I should know?" he demanded, hearing the wobble in his voice.

Zeke leaned forward on his hands and vomited a mass of something half-charred and fleshy. It stank like rotting meat. "Phi..." He took a breath that sounded raw and painful. "Her mother's daughter."

Finn stared blankly. Of course Phi was her mother's daughter. "Anything else?"

Zeke mumbled something that sounded like 'maybe', and then a fit of coughing seized him. As he bent over, garnishing the ground with embers and mucus, blood blossomed across the back of his T-shirt, and Finn had the unnerving sensation that the skin over his spine had just split under the pressure.

It wasn't a punishment he would wish on anyone.

Finn sent out a quick, urgent call to Jo and Riose. He woke them both, but while it took Jo a few moments to shake off her grogginess, Riose was alert at once. His news left them scrambling to get over to him, but at least there was backup coming. He'd just have to hope that Don Ivan didn't get there first. Or didn't bring any nasty surprises.

After all, he couldn't rely on Zeke. If Don had Phi...

"Is there anything else or not?" he demanded.

Zeke raised a truly haggard face, one riddled with bloodstains and bruises. His voice was hoarse and hollow. "Don't let him have her. Please."

The despair Finn heard reached him. "You love her, don't you?" he said quietly. "That's why you're doing this. You love her."

Zeke forced himself up to his feet – the effort was clear – and though he was shaking, though new injuries bloomed on him like patches of poison ivy, he met Finn's stare.

"Who wouldn't?" he croaked.

Finn took him in from his battered face to his dangling, dislocated arm to the burns that raked his skin.

"Is it worth it?"

His teeth bared in a grimace. "Only if you save her."

Finn nodded slowly. He would have said the same. So would Jo or Celia or Riose. And that being the case, he supposed that Phi's soulmate was due the same mercy he would show them.

His punch knocked Zeke out cold.

X - X - X - X - X

His father was waiting in the hallway, ragged animation in his eyes. The hope there was a little pathetic.

Don smiled.

Laurence Ivan put his hands to his mouth like a child caught in mischief. "You caught her. Marie's girl."

"Yes." He glanced out at the sky, which was strewn with darkening colours as the sun sank deeper into the horizon. The dark red smeared like his mother's lipstick would become black; the last traces of blue would be swallowed into black. All would be black and dark and safe. "Are you ready?"

His father let out a soft, ragged sigh. "I have been ready since the day she left me."

There was something in his face – in his stance – that was as alien to Don as a childhood empty of the sound of fist on flesh. A brightness, an eagerness that wasn't fuelled by alcohol or mixed with anger. His father seemed a boy, if one heavier by a paunch and lighter by half a head of hair.

"Where's Mother?" he asked sharply.

His father's gaze was clear and unwavering. "Asleep upstairs."

"You're coming back to her, aren't you?" The question slid out before he could help himself.

"As I have come back to her for twenty years." There was no pity between them: they were past that now, Don's power yawning between them in fulfillment of his father's revenge. "She's my wife."

"Why did you marry her?" he said. It had solved nothing – his father had neither left behind Marie Thetis nor set aside his love for her. Worse, he had nurtured it, fermented it until he choked it down with every glass, love and alcohol burning past his heart.

"She loved me. It was easy. And even if I never loved her, I thought I had it in me to be good to her. I was, until she realized that she couldn't mend me or change me or whatever it was she hoped for." His father shrugged. "It became bitter then. Except for you. We always loved you enough to make up for the rest of it."

For the bruises and the drunken brawls and the shattered glasses on the kitchen floor. Such had been his nursery, and though he had never quite understood it, Don could see that it was him who had held them together: he alone, as he would hold the pod and pack together.

This time it was Laurence Ivan who asked the question. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," he said, and it was true.

He thought of Phi, who had tried to break apart the pod, who had always stood in the way of his destiny, and the satisfaction was deep and cold and refreshing. She would not succeed. And he would have the very great pleasure of showing her just what happened to those who stood in his way.

She would never refuse him again.

_I made a fire and, watching it burn,  
Thought of your future  
With one foot caught in the past, well, now how long can it last?  
No, no, have you no ambition?_

X - X - X - X - X


	20. Chapter Twenty

Afternoon, and happy belated Valentines! In the spirit of love, I bring a new chapter, and huge thanks to all you most fantastic people who reviewed last time round. Thank you:

**Bex Drake**, **yukatalamia, Lethe**, **chocolatetree**, **Lunair**, **Queen of Slayers**, **Yen**, **Shelli**, and last but never least, the excellent **Enigmatic Piscean.**

I adore hearing what you think, and all comments and criticism are welcome. Lyrics belong to The Killers, and their spooky song _Midnight Show_.

Hope you enjoy,  
Ki

**Ripples Part Twenty**

_I know what you want  
I'm gonna take you to a midnight show tonight  
If you can keep a secret…_

"Up."

The command was accompanied by a hand yanking her hair so she had no choice but to obey. Night had fallen while she and Celia sat in the clearing, while she waited, dazed. Part of her felt heartsick, but she had no time to wallow in self-pity. Somehow, they had to survive tonight. Somehow they had to stop Don.

"Where are we going?"

The wolf girl gave her a shove that made her stumble. "Fishing. Now shut up and walk."

Briefly, Phi considered trying to run before dismissing it for the stupidity it would be. Every option she thought of came back to one thing: Celia would be punished.

Her gaze flicked to the two swollen, broken fingers that her friend cradled to her chest. Only fingers so far, but her mind could conjure up all too graphic images of what Don might do if she infuriated him enough.

So she remained quiet and obedient and malleable, and hoped.

X - X - X - X - X

Finn cursed the darkness. It was almost complete now, except for the pools of halogen yellow beneath the streetlights. And he was at a disadvantage if Don brought along any of the Pack.

A hand closed around his arm.

He yelped a syllable that scorched the night as flames burst above his head to whirl like a Catherine wheel, ready to burn and slice wherever he sent them-

And illuminated Riose, eyes shielded. Beside him, Jo grimaced at the sparks spattering down upon them.

"Give me a warning next time!" he gasped and waved away the spell.

"Funnily enough, we were going for stealth," Jo said. "Talk about friendly fire, darling."

"Where's Zeke?" asked Riose coolly. "I want to speak to him."

"Save it for after," he advised. "He's unconscious under the hibiscus bush."

In the gloom, Riose's eyes were a fine, icy silver. Finn could read no discernable expression in them, but he heard the threat rolling through his words. "You said he betrayed us."

"Yep. He's been working with Don Ivan."

"Then he dies." He was discussing murder as if it were the weather. In his face, Finn saw only a cold, controlled stranger.

"He's dying anyway," Finn said. "Look, I'm not fond of the guy, but...Don got someone to put a spell on him so that if he talked, he'd hurt. You think he isn't suffering, go and take a look at him. And incidentally, Jo, that isn't mud you're standing in."

The wildcat looked down. "What do you mean?"

"That's his blood."

Her eyes widened and she stepped back gingerly.

"It doesn't smell like blood," Riose said. "In fact, it smells like..." Bemusement creased his mouth and he looked more like the friend Finn knew. "Well, it smells kind of like gasoline. Very faint, but I wouldn't do any more fire spells around here."

Gasoline for blood. Steam for tears. The world seemed stranger than he could have dreamed. "Whatever it is, it came out of his veins. That spell – it's torture, okay? I think he's paid enough. And right now, I'm more worried about getting Phi back."

"How did you convince Celia to stay at home?" Riose asked. It was almost an idle question. "She must have figured out something's wrong by now."

"I haven't told her," Finn admitted.

The vampire nodded curtly. "Good."

"What do we do now?" he asked hopefully. One of them had to have the grand masterplan, after all.

Riose seemed to melt into the shade until only the glimmer of his eyes said that anyone was there. "We wait."

"And then?"

A curving claw of a smile formed white and smooth against the shadows. "We do whatever we have to get Phi back. No hesitation, Finn. No mercy."

He was taken aback. And then he thought of Phi and of Don Ivan and of the haunting in her eyes, of her voice dull and thin as she said _he s-scares me._

"No mercy," he echoed.

X - X - X - X - X

At the edge of the woods, Don and his father met them. Phi stopped despite herself, and she saw the triumph glitter in Don's eyes as the wolf gave her a hefty shove forward.

Laurence Ivan gripped her chin beneath his fingers and forced her to look into his face. Remove the fine web of lines that age had left and the resemblance between him and Don was uncanny. She braced herself for the waft of alcohol on his breath, but it wasn't there.

"Marie's daughter," he said quietly. "You should have been mine."

"She should have been yours, you mean," she said bitterly.

"Six fingers," Don warned, but Laurence only smiled.

"That is exactly what I mean. You have the look of her."

She glared at him. "Apparently I have my father's eyes."

"And about as much sense." His grip tightened, but only for an instant, and the easy smile never left him . "You should have married Don. We might have avoided this...distasteful business."

"It can still be avoided," she said. "Just let us go."

He shook his head sadly. "No. I'm afraid you need to understand the worth of a blood-oath."

There was, perhaps, one last way to reach him. "Is it worth my mother's life?"

And suddenly she understood that Laurence Ivan wasn't any gentler than his son – that his eyes were deep and turbulent as a whirlpool.

"Oh yes," he breathed, and let her go. "Her most of all."

There was no more idling then. The wolves set a punishing pace, she and Celia frogmarched between them. She already knew their destination: and when at last they stopped, her legs weak and aching, her heart seemed to sag at the sight of her house, and the golden light still on in her mother's bedroom.

Her most of all.

X - X - X - X - X

Finn kept his body small and crouched amidst the undergrowth. Mentally, he blessed the neighbours who'd decided wild, tangled foliage was the way forward. It was a comfortingly thick screen and close enough to provide an excellent view of the Thetis house.

Don Ivan was clear in the artificial light of the porch: beside him, Phi, her face pale. She didn't look hurt, and he wondered why - then his eyes settled on the figure behind her-

"No!" Riose's voice was a snarl, rough, almost anguished. "Not her."

So they hadn't managed to protect Celia.

She seemed so insubstantial huddled between two wolves. There was something odd – wrong – in the way she was supporting her left hand, in the frequent looks Phi darted at her.

"They've hurt her." Riose had gone queerly gentle, his voice dreamy.

Jo must have heard that weird note too, because her tone was a warning. "Don't do anything rash. We don't know what Don's capable of."

The vampire's low, mirthless laugh made Finn shiver. "Nowhere near what I'm capable of. Don't worry, Jo. I can wait. I can wait for as long as it takes."

"Good," she muttered. "I count six wolves here and I can sense another dozen waiting near the lake. Not only that...Don..."

"Don?" whispered Finn.

"He feels strange." Jo paused. "It's as if he's not quite mer. It's a shapeshifter power, but...but I've never felt anything like it."

"I have," Riose volunteered grimly. "It feels like a very weak form of dragon power."

"Dragons?" he hissed. "There are dragons involved?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. It might just mean the Furies are playing games again. They've been trying to get a foothold in the pod for a long time, and if you're looking for a tool, Don fits the bill in every sense of the word."

Either way, it wasn't good news.

A man who bore a distinct resemblance to Don left the group. He bounded up the steps with the cheer of a child, and banged on the door.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," he cooed.

Phi's father opened the door. The shock on his face was evident. "Laurie?"

"Hello Dan." His voice was too hearty, fake. "I've come for what's mine."

"What do you mean?"

"Your life," Laurence Ivan said jovially. "And Marie's. Your daughter broke blood-oath, Dan."

Daniel Thetis was quiet. Finn had to admire the way he didn't panic or do anything but stand there, clearly considering his options.

"No, I don't think she did," he said mildly. "The contract was made between two mer. Phi is human now."

All the geniality vanished from Laurence Ivan, baring the menace beneath like a sword. "She wasn't at the time. The contract was between your daughter and my son. And she is still your daughter."

Phi's father met his hostility with composure. "Is she? I could disagree."

"That won't work," Riose muttered through his teeth.

"What won't?"

"Pretending he doesn't give a damn. If that was her mother, it might work. But her dad?" The vampire grimaced. "No chance."

"I find that hard to believe," Laurence said with icy accusation.

"She abandoned her duty. She threw away all we gave her. A girl like that isn't my daughter."

The snigger that escaped Laurence was sinister. "In that case, do you know what a girl like that is?"

Phi's father frowned. "No..."

Laurnece Ivan's smile was beatific. "Dead."

And he stepped aside so that Daniel Thetis could see the little tableau that shone so clearly under the streetlight: the wolf holding a clawed hand to Phi's throat, her hair drawn back to show the long white sweep of her neck and the line of blood beginning to ooze down it.

"Are you sure she isn't your daughter?" he whispered.

Her father braced himself against the doorframe as if it held him up. All his poise was blasted away by the sight of her. "Phi..."

Her lips formed a silent shape: _don't_.

"Baby," her father rasped. "What have they done to you?"

She blinked, and Finn could see the gleam of tears. "Nothing, dad."

"Yet," corrected Laurence. "Provided you go with my son."

Daniel Thetis turned to him slowly, as if his bones were stiff. "And you?"

He smiled. "Marie and I have unfinished business to conclude."

The fear in Daniel Thetis's eyes was real and raw. "Don't hurt her. Please. You loved her once."

"I still love her! I have loved her while you let her die!"

"Let her live," whispered Phi's father. "Let her keep what little she has left. She gave everything else to the pod."

"Then she can give what remains to me," he snapped, stern and pitiless. "That will repay the debt between us. Don't you think she'll say the same?"

Finn saw the answer on Daniel's face. That was exactly what he was afraid of. Now he was faced with a choice as terrible as it was cruel. He could stay, and see his daughter die before his eyes, or he could leave his wife to die, walk to his own death, and hope that his child might survive.

"Can't we do something?" he muttered.

"Not with that wolf ready to cut her throat," Jo answered grimly.

He didn't think he would have the courage to make that decision. But Daniel Thetis only glanced back at the house, and blew his wife a kiss she would never see. Then he let the wolves take his arms and lead him stumbling down to Don and Phi.

Father and daughter stared at one another. Slowly, the wolf drew back her claws from Phi's throat: Daniel Thetis gave her a small nod, and said, "Thank you."

Don Ivan snorted.

As if the sound roused something in her, Phi gazed at him. And then, to Finn's immense horror, she knelt down in front of Don, and bowed her head. That russet hair seemed like a web of blood over her face.

"You don't need Celia anymore," she said quietly. "Please, let her go."

Don's mouth twisted. "Very good. You're learning." He waved a languid hand. "Leave the human bitch here. We don't need her."

Celia was shoved onto the ground. She staggered away, not looking back, and when she passed them, Finn heard the dry, hacking sound of sobs. None of them dared to comfort her – but beside him, Riose's breathing had grown noticeably heavier, as if he was striving to contain himself.

"What will you do with me?" Daniel Thetis asked calmly. "The same as your father did to my parents?"

"The same," Don said. "And nothing more than you deserve."

Those wise eyes took him in from head to foot, and then Daniel Thetis said with utter contempt, "You are a disgrace to our people."

The blow snapped back his head; his glasses clattered to the ground, but Phi's father didn't lose an inch of his dignity. Don lifted his hand again, and the next punch sent Daniel Thetis sprawling in the dirt.

Finn winced, but beside him, Riose actually chuckled.

That wasn't right. There was nothing funny about this situation.

"I am the future of our people," hissed Don.

Gingerly, Phi's father got to his feet. He lifted his head, proud, wearing an expression that Finn had seen on Phi a thousand times before. It didn't bode well.

"You're our past," he said. "You're a spoilt, vicious little brat, and I wish I'd listened to my girl when she tried to warn me about you. I should have known. Like father, like son."

The sneer that twisted Don's face was ugly as barbed wire. "Exactly. And I'm not the only one who'll end up just – like – my – father. The only difference is that I'll be alive, and you'll be dead."

"Get on with it then," Daniel Thetis said coldly, against Phi's muffled cry. "Or are you expecting me to die of boredom? A monologue should do it. I'm sure your ego's up to the challenge, son."

Don's eyes bulged. Clearly he had not realised that Daniel Thetis hadn't led the pod by charm alone. Nor had he been there to see Phi's father take on the werewolves who'd vandalized his car – or nurse his wife when her illness became a brutal beast that tore away her control and her life.

"Daddy..." Phi moaned in a tiny voice that sounded half pride and half horror.

"You won't talk so much when you're breathing in algae," Don hissed.

"I won't have to listen to you either," Phi's father snapped back. And suddenly Finn saw just what he was doing, so carefully, so boldly – that all Don's attention which had been focused so perilously on Phi had now switched to her father. "Always look for the silver lining, eh?"

Don had gone bright red. And then all the tension went from him. Uh-oh.

"Susie," he said to one of the wolves. "I'm imposing a fine. A cut for every insult. How many do you make it so far?"

"God knows," the wolf muttered, which probably wasn't the answer Don had been looking for.

"Let's call it five," Don said brightly.

Daniel Thetis stuck out his jaw. "Get on with it."

"Oh no. Not for you. For Phi." At his aghast face, Don smiled. "Or you can behave, and we'll finish this. I thought so. You know where the lake is. Why don't you lead the way?"

It was a solemn, bleak procession that Daniel Thetis led. He was walking to his own death in the waters where his own parents had died: and he knew it. But he went with his head high, and his back straight.

"We following?" Finn hissed.

"You follow," Riose whispered. "I need to find Cee."

Need. That word gave Finn food for thought. "But Mr Thetis-"

"You missed it, didn't you?" Riose said dryly. "He wasn't just provoking Don for fun."

"He was protecting Phi, darling," Jo said, sounding as baffled as Finn felt.

"And he was calling for help." Riose chuckled. "When Don hit him – that's when he sent out the call. Don was so wound up he wouldn't have noticed a thing, and those wolves were busy watching it all."

"Sneaky devil," Jo said in outright admiration.

"We need to be there, just in case no one heard," Riose said. "But I can catch you up. Celia needs me."

Was that it? wondered Finn. Or was it that he needed her?

Either way, it didn't matter. They parted without another word in the determined hope that they would all reunite later, when the world was right again. If it could ever be so.

X - X - X - X - X

Laurence Ivan had never set foot inside the Thetis house, but he knew where to find Marie all the same. How could he not when he was poised for the mention of her name, when she haunted him like a succubus?

So when he saw the woman in the bed, his first thought was disbelief. This couldn't be Marie Thetis, this skeletal, fragile thing whose hair was grey and thin as fog, whose hands were pale, limp on the covers. But then he looked at her eyes and they were exactly the same. Clear and true, steel and sorrow.

As a girl, she had an air of mystery that no one could penetrate: it was gone now. There was no mystery left in her, only the certainty of a grueling death and he felt a rush of satisfaction. Here, at last, she would be his in a way that she would never be Daniel's. Her last moments, her regrets, her confessions would be kept in his heart.

"Laurie?" she breathed. "Why are you here? What was all that ruckus?"

"I've come to see you," he said quietly. "It's been too long."

Her smile was tremulous. "It has. Have you and Dan...have you..."

He only looked at her, and her smile faded. "No," he said flatly. "I told you I would never forgive him, Marie."

All the colour leached from her until she seemed translucent, a mirage of life.

"What have you done with him?" she whispered hoarsely.

"The same as we do to all oath-breakers."

A great, harsh gasp escaped her, and it was sweet to his ears. "It was you. You killed my parents."

"No, you did that," he chided gently. "You left me. For _him_."

She was not one to deny the truth. It was her fault they had died. If she had only loved him as he had loved her, if she had not tossed away her heart like confetti. "And have you come to kill me too?"

Laurence came to sit on the bed beside her. She did not flinch, but when he reached for her hand, she withdrew it coolly as if she were a princess. He'd thought that he was past being hurt by her, but the gesture was like a gash on his heart.

"I came to see you, that was all," he said. "I came to see the girl I loved when I was a boy, though she's almost gone now. I came to see if I loved you still. And even though we are both old and foolish and even though you are a broken thing in a broken world, I still love you so much it hurts."

The hiss of her breath was like a whip, but she said nothing.

"You're dying, Marie," he said softly, and drew his hands over her gaunt face. "You only have one vision left in you, one look at what might have been. You can die knowing, or..." His fingers slid to her throat, laced, a tightening choker. "Or like this."

"Is this what you call love?" she whispered.

Anger made him want to squeeze. He held back. "It's all you left me with. You destroyed me – I loved you, I would have given you everything and you threw me away! You left me for my best friend!"

"I never meant to hurt you," she said in an empty, weary voice. "I am sorry, Laurie. Do you think I haven't regretted what I did? Do you think I haven't tried to make amends?"

The jealousy poured out of him, burning. "It wasn't enough! I've seen you together over the years, Marie. You love him. You have been happy."

"Yes," she said quietly. "Despite it all."

"You left me nothing. At least give me your last vision."

"Why should I?" she demanded, suddenly strident. "You've murdered my husband. What do I have left to live for?"

He smiled coldly. "Oh, nothing. But maybe you think Phi has something left to live for."

Her face froze. He was struck by doubt. Maybe she didn't care about her crippled, human daughter. Maybe she was as cold as he had sometimes thought.

But then her hand clamped on his wrist, desperate, and he felt a surge of triumph. "Let her live."

"I will," he promised, not stating in what condition or for how long. It wasn't a lie, merely an omission.

"What do you want me to see?" she said dully.

He gazed into those familiar grey eyes, and for a moment, saw the girl he'd loved and lost. "Us."

She closed her eyes, then she said dreamily, "Laurie?"

"Yes?"

"Go to hell."

He opened his mouth, astounded, furious – and toppled to the floor unconscious.

Behind him, Zeke dropped the paperweight he'd snatched from one of the shelves and leaned against the wall, shuddering. Bloody footprints marked his path, and crimson pools spread lazily at his feet; his face was barely recognizable except for those extraordinary copper eyes.

But Marie Thetis gazed at him and said in wonder, "I dreamed of you."

"Did you?" he croaked. "Is there any chance I'm going to live a long life of shameless hedonism?"

Then Zeke saw that it was not wonder at all in her eyes, but horror. "In every future where you were, there was nothing for her but fire. You will be Phi's end, and nothing will remain but ashes."

The silence was bleak, her face white and shocked. Then he drew himself up and said grimly, "Not if I can help it."

He saw tears gathering in her eyes. "But you can't."

X - X - X - X - X

Phi heard the waters long before she saw them. It seemed to her that their feet fell in time with the lapping wavelets until all the ambient noise of the night was like a drum sounding out an execution.

She had been here a thousand times in darkness: the lake had been her sanctuary, her one safe place. No longer. The knife-edge gleam of Don's smile defiled it and made the mass of water eerie, black as ink.

All those nights when she had thought Zeke was giving her his secrets, one by one like charms, he was only giving her lies. Lies of truth, lies of trust, lies to chain her and lead her back here, now.

Her father was marched into the water by a pair of wolves. Grim, he faced Don.

"Kneel down," Don ordered.

"Daddy, don't," she whispered in a sound which rose from her lips like smoke seeping through a crack.

"Hush, Phi. It'll be all right."

They were such small figures in that immense night, the girl and the man, and she could not say to him all the things that she yearned to for the tears which were salt and wire balled up in her throat.

It wouldn't. It couldn't be all right.

"You made a blood-oath to my family," Don said. He was solemn, his gold hair a soft glow. "You broke it."

"I broke it," she said, struggling against the wolves that held her. "Me! Not him, me!"

His eyes were burned-out pits. "You broke it. And he will pay for you."

"No!" she screamed, kicking at her captors. "You can't! Not my dad, not him, take me instead!"

"Baby..."

His voice calmed her as it always had been able to. How could he face them so serenely, his smile soft and crooked? Her father might have been knelt in the mud, but his gaze was unashamed.

Tears boiled down her cheeks.

"You're still my daughter," he said and the pride in his voice hit her like a fist in the gut. "You always were. I was a fool to doubt it. Now be my daughter, Phi, and be brave."

She shook her head. "He'll kill you."

"Yes. But it's only water. It's only what we are. And I promise you, I'll come back to you on the foam of every wave."

"Enough." Don sounded perfectly bored, but his face crackled with animation like a live wire. He flicked his fingers at the wolves either side of her father. "Let's get on with it."

But it was her he watched, his eyes wide and hungry until all she knew in the world was her father knelt in the mud and the maggot-sheen of Don Ivan's face.

They pushed her father down into the water – she screamed, screamed until it was like claws raking her throat, and it was all too awful yet she could not look away.

Each detail marked her like the lash of a scorpion's tail.

His shoulders, arched and straining despite his calm. The snuffle of his breath as he sputtered in air and water before they forced his head under. The frantic whisking of his hands in the shallows, the bared teeth of the wolves and the feeling, that neverending feeling of helplessness...

She sagged in their arms, limp, destroyed, and sobbed.

X - X - X - X - X

Finn crouched in the woods that bordered the lake. Jo had a hand on his shoulder. At Phi's shout, he started, and she shook her head. "Not yet."

"When?" he hissed.

Her eyes were vast darkness rimmed only by a lume of green. "When his head's under. Don will want to watch him die, darling. That's when they'll be most distracted."

Finn nodded. He was quietly calling up spells in his mind, anger a cold, lurking thing sat like a toad in his stomach. Spells to burn and incapacitate, spells of pain. He hadn't thought it would be so easy, that he would feel so little regret.

The wolves shoved Daniel Thetis under the water, and Don's face became intent, distracted – there! He-

-found heavy hands clamped firmly on his shoulders, and a voice rolling with threat soft in his ear. "You keep nice and still now. This ain't your fight."

He had no choice but to obey, and then his eyes widened as he recognized his captor.

X - X - X - X - X

The desperate splash of water echoed in her ears as he fought – he couldn't help but fight for his life, an instinct beyond any wish for peace. And...and...the sound was like thunder, like feet pounding on the ground-

"LET HIM GO!"

The voice was a feral roar – it tore the world in two, tore her eyes open.

She was being wrested from those unyielding hands, tumbling onto the earth like a sheet collapsing in. Only when the impact jarred her did Phi realize it was not some wild dream.

"There will be no more of this," said Jessica Arryn, dainty as she stepped forward. The spotlights of torches illuminated her unforgiving stare. "I thought we buried it with Alwyn. Don't make me bury it with you, boy."

Her father's head was up – dripping, coughing up water, he seemed barely aware of what was happening. One wolf held him by the hair; the other was poised to fight, teeth a mountain range in the gloom.

Don looked thunderstruck. "You..."

He looked around and Phi could see the gnarled shadows of the other pod elders. The old barnacles, who had been young once too, who still were inside the unaging breadth of their souls.

Disbelief warred with hope in her heart.

But then Don threw back his head and laughed, invincible against their papery skin and their liver spots. "You old idiots," he sneered, his smile stretched like a prisoner on the rack. "What do you think you can do against twenty wolves and the powers of a god?"

"Oh, I don't know," came a flat drawl she knew as Iry's at once. "Kick your ass?"

"We've been mourning too long," remarked a new voice, and when the woman slid into the light, Phi knew her for a werewolf but not one she'd ever seen. She moved with liquid ease despite the age lines gripping her eyes. "Look at what you children have been doing in our absence."

"_Bad_ dogs," added another, and she saw more wolves scattered among the pod, men and women who all had the marks of age in their stature and appearance. "Screw the rolled-up newspaper, this is an obedience school job."

Don's wolves were looking uneasy. Whoever the newcomers were, they spoke with clear authority – and as one.

"You're not Pack," one of them ventured.

The woman laughed. "Of course we are. We're the Pack that let ourselves fall apart. We're the Pack who were as silly and as proud as you." Her eyes hardened. "Luckily, we've seen the error of our ways. And we've come to show you yours."

Don's smirk vanished. "Really."

"You think you're so formidable, don't you?" mused Jess. There was a cold, fell cast to her face that Phi had never seen before.

Phi heard the snaps of foliage – and suddenly they were stepping from the shadows, some leaning on canes, some supported, others striding forth with ease. Those dear faces were full of purpose, full of the same life that had carried them through the shining, cruel days of Aurora and Alwyn and broken oaths. Old, oh yes, but survivors one and all.

Pack and pod together, they formed a semi-circle around the lake.

"Maybe those teenage powers you've got can hurt one of us," remarked Jess. "But we ain't one, boy. We're legion."

Jessica Arryn smiled and it was reflected on every ancient face.

"And we're pretty damn pissed off."

Don's mouth opened wide – scream or protest, the elders gave him no time to voice it.

Power that Phi could no longer feel smacked down the wolves like a line of dominoes. Twin splashes announced her father's captors joining them; he was still knelt there, gazing about him with utter incredulity.

Only Don remained upright, mouth slack in shock. But his face twisted-

He was so fast, so fleet, that Phi had no breath to scream as he grabbed her, arm about her throat. She could feel the hot, hard press of his body, repellent to her as the sweat-slimed hand he clamped over her mouth.

"Keep away," he warned, voice breathless against her ear. "I can break her neck before you can try and break me."

"How'd you do that?" demanded Iry, bemused. "That should'a flattened a little fish like you."

His laughter rattled deep in his chest and had the hollow sound of madness. "You can't touch me now. I belong to Avarice ap Sangager!"

The name made Phi's blood run cold. Suddenly a dozen things that Zeke had told her clattered coldly in her mind.

"_Fireblade gave me to a woman as a gift."_

_"Surely she must be dead."_

_"Very little is sure," he answered, not quite an evasion, not quite an answer._

"_I thought I loved her once. I was young, foolish, swayed by her charm. And she was a charming woman when she wanted to be. She promised me freedom."_

Avarice ap Sangager. Ryar ap Sangager. It could not be mere coincidence. She began to glimpse the tangled threads of a web so vast she had never imagined it – and she could not imagine her place within it, except to grasp that she was a fly struggling to free herself.

"You belong to who?" gasped Jess.

A strange, low sound grazed the air. It took Phi a moment realize that moan came from her father, sodden, gazing at Don with horrified eyes. "No...she was a horror story. She wasn't real. Laurie said...he said...oh god, he tried to tell me and I laughed at him..."

"Ain't Sangager a dragon's name?" ventured Iry. When the grim expressions of the group did not twitch, he groaned and said only, bafflingly, "Not again."

"...I thought he was making it up. I thought it was just a story to impress me and Marie...we were so young, we were all so young..."

The arm at her throat tightened. She squirmed uselessly against it. "Phi and I are leaving," Don said silkily. "Don't try and stop us. She's human now, you know, and I can hurt her a lot before I'm forced to kill her."

Jess's expression was one of pure anguish.

"We have an appointment with Avarice," he purred in her ear. "She's been waiting a long time to see you. And then..." She yanked her head away from the feel of his lips on her throat. "You'll be mine, Delphine Thetis. And you won't be so proud when I'm done with you."

His fingers crept along her skin like a spider's legs. Phi couldn't keep a whine from escaping her, animalistic, evoking only a harsh laugh from him.

"I'm going to fucking break you," he hissed, and the sound was a knife to her. "You shouldn't have said no to me."

Terror shortened her breath as he dragged her from the group, their faces fading into the shadow like white clouds, all fading in the face of her fear, and the heavy, raw sense of betrayal.

Save me, she prayed to anyone or anything that might be listening. Please. I don't think I can do it myself anymore.

_I took my baby's breath beneath the chandelier  
Of stars and atmosphere  
And watched her disappear...  
Into the midnight show_

X - X - X - X - X


	21. Chapter Twenty One

My _huge_ thanks and general worship to: **Takishia, LifeSucksWithoutVamps, the anonymous one**, **Silvia**, **Izzy**, **Anterrabae, Lunair**, **CalliopeMused**, **Bex Drake**, **yukatalamia, Shelli**, and the lovely **Lethe**.

As you can tell, I adore hearing what you think. Comments, criticism, thoughts, opinions, challenges all very much welcome!

Lyrics come from _Wonderwall_ by Oasis. I hope you enjoy reading this!  
- Ki

**Ripples Part Twenty One**

_Back beat, the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out  
I'm sure you've heard it all before but you never really had a doubt  
I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now_**...**

Celia hadn't gone far. It was mere moments before the soft, human scent of her drifted across the air, tainted with salt.

His sister's husky prophecy echoed in his mind. _She will break, you know, one way or another – and you'll have only yourself to blame._

Riose had thought her fatalistic. Now he was very afraid that she was right.

Celia was sat on a wall, shoulders hunched, folded in on herself like a withered flower. Her face was in deep shadow, but her maimed hand was all too visible.

He paused, hesitant. "Cee?"

Her eyes were pure liquid under the streetlight, her lips parted. Then she gave a ragged laugh, the tears yet held back, her control formidable as she herself was formidable.

"I thought you'd come to rescue me," she said in a hopeless, shaky voice.

He flinched. "You don't know how much I wish I had. I'm sorry."

"It was so easy," she said dreamily. "I didn't know it could be so easy. He just reached out, and I felt my bones break. And he enjoyed it."

"He'll pay for that," he swore.

For a moment, he was a creature of the Furies again and their will possessed him as surely as it ever had, rising up with whispers of bloodlust and reprisal.

"I don't need revenge, Ri." How dreadfully tired she sounded. "It won't help."

Confusion made him hesitate. "What will?"

Silence, her eyes bright reflections of the long-set sun. A shiver wracked her – sunlight spilled out onto her cheeks like gold rays, and for a moment, she was strange and beautiful until he realised that it was not sunlight at all but tears.

He could stay still no longer. The space between them vanished, unimportant, unnecessary as he scooped her up into his arms and held her to him as if he could ward away all that happened. She was light as a fallen leaf, and terribly brittle, terribly cold. Her tears were the warmest thing about her, damp on his neck.

She didn't wail or rage, didn't do anything except weep with so little fuss that he could only marvel at her dignity. Her broken hand was limp in her lap, she curled across his body. As the tears left her, she stilled, and lay in the cradle of his arms, her breath a soft wash on his throat.

"I need to be safe again," she mumbled, "But that won't happen - no, it never happened, did it? I was never safe. The monsters were always there, waiting. I just didn't see them before because they looked like people. It was an illusion."

He closed his lips over a confirmation.

"And what about you, Ri?" Her voice was unexpectedly bitter and angry. She reached out and turned his face down to her so she could see his expression. "Are you just a monster who looks like a person?"

"Sometimes," he answered honestly. The distance between them was so slight, so intense.

"As long as I know you, I'll never be safe." The measured pace of her words did not lessen their impact.

"I - I know."

"I could walk away," she threw at him, words like stones. "I could leave tonight and pretend I didn't know you, I could make other friends. I could forget all about the Nightworld, and eventually, it'd all just be a bizarre memory of some people I knew once."

"Yes."

One word. It hurt.

She took a deep breath. "Would I be safe?"

"Probably," he said, unwillingly. "Safer than if you stay."

But she would never know what happened. She'd never hear a mermaid sing again, or see a witch juggling with fire. No one would show her the secret ways through the wood, or play hopscotch in the moon-shadows with her. All that was dark and subtle and dangerous would be kept from her, and the night would become nothing more than the absence of sunlight.

She would be safe, but she woud never know what it meant to be truly human, truly alive.

"I thought so," she said. Her hair fell across her face like black bars, and for an elusive instant, she seemed caged. "I don't know what to do, Ri. It would be smarter to go."

He remembered a conversation in a gentler night than this, when he had been afraid and she offered solace.

_If I do ever run...promise you'll come after me?_

"Yes," he said softly. "But please don't."

"I'm scared," she said simply.

Riose met her eyes. "So am I. I don't think there's been a day when I haven't been afraid that the Furies will come back for me – or worse, they'll come for one of you. I'm afraid I'll wake up one morning and be a monster again. I'm afraid I already am and I just don't know it. And if you go...who'll keep me from being a monster, Cee? Who'll keep me human?"

"You don't me need for that."

"Yes I do." He touched her hair, lightly, timid. "You taught me how to be human."

Her eyes were puzzled, still wet and gleaming. "What could I teach you?"

"Fun," he said, the word less strange than it had been when he was a child and had first heard it. "Games where winning didn't matter. Sunshine and mud and cookies. Hugs. Jokes. Truth or dare and catch and I Spy. Super special triple chocolate sundaes. Caring about someone for no reason at all. How to be friends."

The last, he left unsaid, but it lingered in his mouth as fresh and sharp as mint.

Love.

"You didn't get all that from me," she said, sounding astonished.

"I did." He took a deep breath. "But I'm still never sure that it's enough – that I won't wake up and it'll all be a dream. It doesn't stop me being afraid."

She touched his cheek, very gentle, a seed of the girl he knew. She was weighing her words, deciding, and the time while he waited seemed a taste of eternity.

"Then maybe we can be afraid together," Celia offered. She tried a fragile smile. "You protect me from the monsters, I'll make sure you don't become one of them."

"So...you'll stay?"

Relief was so intense that he closed his eyes, forcing himself to be still. It seemed to him the merest movement might send her fleeing like a faun.

"Of course," she sighed, and he dared to look at her tremulous smile. "Do you really think I could leave any of you?" She lifted her damaged hand ruefully. "It's only a couple of fingers, right?"

Her flippancy didn't disguise the flash of fear in her eyes.

"You need healing," he said, all too aware that he had taken Phi to be healed only a couple of weeks before. And suddenly a thought clicked into his mind with unerring accuracy.

That injury had been caused by Don. And Don had had the waft of dragons about his newfound power. Riose didn't think there were any running around Ryars Valley right now, but he knew there were two people who had stolen dragon powers, two people who had meddled in this whole tangled affair and who were inevitably found on opposite sides of any argument.

Out of Chatoya Irkil and Bane Malefici, he knew which would support Don Ivan. By default, a healer and a potential ally was waiting for them.

"And I know just the person to do it," he said, and stood with her in his arms.

"I can walk," Celia protested.

"We don't have time for that," he told her, and then added grimly, "This is going to hurt your hand, Cee, but I wouldn't unless I had to. Hang on."

With that, he was running – faster than any human, fast enough for her to gasp and wince against him. The wind streamed by, time streaming with it, and he prayed that he was right. It was Celia in his arms: yet it was Phi in danger now, Phi in desperate need of help.

X - X - X - X - X

They crashed through the woods. Sensations spun by like flashes of a nightmare: the spiky black shapes of branches, her feet scratching and dragging in the dirt, her hair clumped in her mouth and her eyes.

His arm was tight about her throat, squeezing until her vision was greyed and disintegrating. Barely conscious, Phi was reduced to soundless fear inside her body, which became no more than a percussion instrument: hollow, noisy, fragile.

Relentless, Don Ivan dragged her into the shadows and the secret places of Ryars Valley. The worst of it was his scent – lake water and musk and sweat, all-pervasive. She inhaled his cruelty with every breath. Time was fluid, rolling between her fingers – she was sixteen, she was eight, she was six and ten and thirteen, she was breathing him in and trying to hide, she was sixteen, she was eight...

X - X - X - X - X

The woods were unfamiliar to her – a vast dappled world that seemed new and dreamlike. Phi was used to water, to crowds, to noise that was constant and public. Here, every sound seemed an intrusion on the subtlety of the silence – the rustle of leaves, the crackle of the ground underfoot. Voices were vulgar as a scream in a cathedral.

It was almost like being underwater – murky, green, full of shadows and half-hidden shapes, but without the press of water, she felt lonely. A little scared. She clung to her father's hand as if it were a lifebelt.

Around them, Don ran and darted, chattering eagerly. Others of the pod elders drifted in and out of her memory – adults murmuring of adult things, but the fraught atmosphere was unmistakable.

Then the walk ended: new figures, strange-smelling, entered. There were discussions and long pauses and then her father sent her and Don to play in the woods.

She hadn't known him well enough to dislike him then. Instead, she followed him and waited silently at his side while he talked to some of the Pack boys. She didn't like their snarling voices, their swagger, but she answered when they spoke to her; she tried to be her father's daughter.

"Is it true about the pit?" Don had said, his voice eager.

The wolves had been a little older – eleven, twelve, the age gap enough for them to be condescending. "Depends what you've heard," one of them said with a smirk.

"I heard there's spikes at the bottom," Don said. "I hear you keep prisoners there, and you torture them, and I heard that someone _died _there." The last rushed out with ghoulish enthusiasm.

They neither confirmed nor denied the rumours; one of them offered, "We could show you it."

Don's eyes lit up.

So she found herself tramping after them until the adults' voices were a burr, then were swallowed up by the silence of the forest. They walked until her legs ached and she was sticky and hot and tired. Then one of the boys pulled aside a rotten wooden cover to reveal a long, narrow well.

"There it is," he said proudly. "That's the pit."

Phi tottered as close to the edge as she dared, and peered into it. "It just looks like a big hole to me," she said dubiously. "I can't see any spikes."

"Well, they're all rusted from the blood on 'em," one of the boys said. He didn't sound too pleased.

"It smells disgusting," she announced. It was just a silly story – probably it was an old well, and they'd made up the tales to sound cool. The reality, though, was disappointing.

"Well, it would!" a wolf said indignantly. "It's _the pit_."

"It's a stinky old hole," she retorted. "My dad's got bigger holes in his yard."

"Has not!"

"Has too!"

Throughout the exchange, Don was circling the pit, his eyes fixed on it. From every angle, he peered in, his fascination seemingly that of any small boy confronted with a gruesome story.

"Has not! It's _the pit_."

"It's _the pits_," she mocked. With unerring diplomatic skill, Phi continued this line of argument until the wolves stormed off in a rage.

"Now how are we going to get back?" Don demanded. He was squinting into the dark hole, face screwed up in thought.

"It's not that hard," she said defiantly. "If dumbos like them can manage it, it'll be easy for us to get back. We're pod, aren't we?"

He didn't answer her for a while. When he did speak, he sounded abstracted and remote.

"You're right, I can't see the spikes," he said. "D'you think they were making it up?"

She shrugged. "We could throw in a rock or something. We'd hear if it hit them." She was beginning to get bored of the Pack's mighty pit. The woods, she decided, were kind of creepy.

"Not if it missed," he muttered.

"Let's go back," she said. "It's boring."

He glanced up – and though she saw the strange glitter of his eyes, she didn't understand what it meant. "Hey, I think I see a skull. Come look!"

She was stupid. She fell for a trick that Wile E Coyote would have snubbed: she went over, interest briefly reawakened and peered in-

Although later no one would believe her, she felt the hand on her back – she felt the shove. She woke from nightmares feeling it, toppling down, down, down into darkness and waking to tangled sheets and a thundering heart.

She fell, she flew – for a moment, she couldn't tell, time dragged down with her by ruthless gravity, by the call of the pit. Smell of decay, death, ordure-

Pain broke into her leg like a wild animal, tearing, cruel. She managed only a thin wail, hands scrabbling to the source of her agony, shock black, swamping her...

Before she passed out, she knew one fact: there were spikes in the pit. One of them was in her leg.

X - X - X - X - X

It must have been moments before she came around again, sobbing. The pain was still there, big and overwhelming and harsh.

She gazed up into the circle of light. As long as she lived, the sight would haunt her: Don leaned over, and it was as if he had torn off a mask to reveal the Halloween monster beneath. His eyes were hot, hungry, drinking in the sight of her in the gloom.

"Get Daddy!" she pleaded between tears. "Don, please, get Daddy, I'm hurt."

She didn't understand him, even then. She thought it had all been some awful accident: that he would be sorry, run and fetch her father and it would all somehow be okay. But he didn't.

He stood, watching her, that expression of glee and desire plastered on his face.

When he spoke, his voice was tremulous and excited. "Does it hurt?"

"Yes, please, get help!"

Her eyes were adjusting to the gloom. Her nose was full of the stench of old blood and mud and rot. In the corner, she saw a pale, long shape – another, clusters of them, and when she reached out for one in her daze of pain and confusion, she saw that they were bones. Bones with gnaw-marks – she flung it away, moaning.

Mud and blood and bone. People had died down here, and she was hurting so much, and the darkness seemed to be closing in, swallowing her...

She screamed, screaming until her throat felt like it was dangling in tatters. She begged to him, towering over her like a golden angel, knowing that she was alone except for him, that he was the only one who could help her.

She truly thought she would die, pinned upon the pit like a butterfly.

And he watched her. For what felt like hours he watched, drinking in her pain and fear, and when she heard his laughter as she flitted in and out of consciousness, she tried to scream again, but had no voice left.

There, in the dark, she learned his true nature. She never forgot the lesson, even when he grew bored of her and went to find adults. Even when she was lifted out by soft hands, when her father cuddled her as praises showered on Don for being so brave – coming back alone, making his ways through the woods like that.

Tears glistened in his eyes as she pointed at him through a haze of painkillers, accusing. Of course no one believed her in the face of his scraped hands, of how fast he had run, his own tears. It was a virtuoso performance.

And she never forgot what he had taught her in the pit.

X - X - X - X - X

When Riose put her carefully on her feet, Celia was dizzy with pain. No matter how he had tried, the run had jolted her hand until she felt sick. For a moment, she clung to him as the only safety in a treacherous world, and he was warm, solid, folding around her like he could protect her from all the world.

Wearily, she drew away. He'd deposited them in front of someone's door. "Where are we?"

In answer, he stepped up and rang the doorbell.

They waited in terse silence. She heard the sound of scuffling eventually, and the door was flung open by Chatoya Irkil. Celia knew her – she was one of Aspen's friends, if one he treated with something close to wariness, and she'd seen the witch with Mr Jubatus too. She was dressed for bed, her hair falling in a dark cloud about her, her green eyes soft and curious.

"Can I..." Her eyes dropped to Celia's hand, and she said in an entirely different tone, "Who did that?"

"Don Ivan," Riose said, voice almost neutral. Almost. "He's got Phi."

The witch's mouth drew tight. "I hope you haven't come to try and guilt-trip me, Riose."

"I came to see if you would heal Celia." There was unexpected ice in the words. "I'm not stupid enough to expect anything more. You made your views on Phi's predicament very clear."

Confused, Celia looked from one to the other.

"Take care," warned Chatoya. "Even I don't have unlimited patience."

She heard Riose draw a harsh breath, and she was expecting one of his cool put-downs, then he let it out and said, "My apologies. Please – I need your help."

"The question is," said a smooth voice, "what are you prepared to pay for it?"

She'd never seen Riose move so fast. Suddenly he was in front of her – protecting her, she realised, tense as a cat waiting to pounce.

"Not enough," Riose snapped.

"It's okay, Ri," she said, nudging him aside. "I know him."

Riose was looking at her as if she was mad. Blue Malefici, on the other hand, was wearing an amused smile that she'd seen a dozen times before. He was one of Aspen's friends – one of the few people Aspen seemed genuinely easy with – and over the years, they'd run into one another often enough for her to know a few things about him.

"You've met me," corrected Blue. "I'm not sure that counts as knowing."

She knew Aspen liked him, even though he feared Blue too. She knew Vaje hated him. And she knew two secrets about him.

"Well," she said softly, her heart hammering, "who really knows the Demon Fury?"

Now she knew one secret about him.

The silence was vast as the sky. She dared meet his eyes and had to look away – something dark yawned there, opening out into emotions she had never seen and could not even qualify. She could not help but be aware that she was human, frail, infinitely breakable.

She had been afraid of Don. It was nothing to the terror that gripped her now.

"Don't hurt her," she heard Riose whisper. It was a plea, not a command.

"I had no idea you knew." Blue sounded...thoughtful. "Martin's carelessness, I suppose."

"Someone's carelessness," she answered, cautious. "You helped Phi."

"If you want to call it that, yes."

"Why?"

He shrugged, a languid, graceful gesture. So might a tiger shrug, settling before wounded prey. "She was willing to pay."

"And if we're willing to pay again?" Her voice was husky, she realised, frightened. The pain was throbbing in her finger. She felt old, tired, as if she was dealing away her soul piece by piece.

"No." The clipped word was spoken in unison – Chatoya and Riose stared at one another, then the witch said quietly, "I won't let it happen."

"I fail to see how you can stop any of this," Blue said calmly. "They need help; I'm willing to provide it."

"For a price." The bitterness in Chatoya's voice startled her. "All your help has a price."

"A fair trade." His smile was thin, serpentine. "Or do you really think they'll let Don Ivan kill Delphine? That is how it will end. She defied him in front of the entire pod. He won't let such humiliation pass. And mark me, he will want to shame her as badly as he feels she has shamed him."

Chatoya was pale except for the two bars of scarlet on her cheeks, still as if his words had frozen her.

"He knows how to make her weak," he continued softly. "After all, he has done it before. He knows the power of darkness and pain and despair – and love. He will use it to make her docile, to break her piece by piece until all she knows of love is how deadly it can be. And when he tires of her, when she is his completely and nothing remains but shreds and madness, he will kill her."

"As if you care," Chatoya said, but her voice was tremulous.

"For her, no. For the gain I can make here?" He turned to Riose and his face was imperious, icy. "What will you give me for her life, Riose?"

Riose shook his head, but Celia could see him deciding.

"I have something to offer you," she said quietly.

Riose grabbed her, holding her as easily as if she were made of feathers and string. "No."

"And what might that be?" Blue purred.

She avoided his eyes, but her voice was surprisingly steady. "My silence."

"About what? My other identity? The silence isn't for my safety."

"Not that."

"Then what?" He spoke idly, but his stillness was that of a predator lulling its prey.

She knew one secret about him. Just one. And once it was gone, nothing would keep her safe.

"Enough." The strain was raw in Chatoya's voice. "I'll help you. No price. No debts. My help, this once."

"Why?" Riose asked, unexpectedly suspicious.

"Because I'm tired of seeing people who should know better throw themselves at the Furies. Because if Don doesn't kill you, _he_ will later." Her fists were clenched. "Give me your hand, Celia."

"We need more help than that," ventured Riose.

Chatoya's grip wasn't gentle: Celia gasped as magic rushed into her fingers, and her bones rearranged themselves in a blur of black pain.

"You'll get it," Chatoya said flatly. "I've called someone. She swore to protect Phi – she's on her way."

"Who?"

"Ask her when you see her." She bit out the words as if every one was a curse. "Bandage that hand when you get home. If you get home. And don't ask me for any more favours, Riose. I swore I'd keep the Furies out of Ryars Valley. You made me break that promise."

"I didn't make you," he said curtly. "We would have paid Blue."

"Then you're an idiot," she said, and slammed the door on them.

Celia let out a breath she hadn't know she was holding. Her hand was now swollen and bruised around the knuckles, but the pain had subsided to a dull ache. It felt wrenched, no more.

"Why did you do that?" Riose asked, and she turned to see him staring at Blue with nothing short of astonishment. "You knew what was going to happen."

"Don't you have a friend to keep from a grisly death?" Blue said breezily. "I'd run if I were you. With a temper like hers, she's liable to provoke Don Ivan beyond any hope of reprieve."

Riose grimaced, then said, "But-"

"Ri," she said. She could see it in his eyes – the hunger, the need to unravel a mystery, to dive back into the cryptic politics of the Furies. Some part of him still belonged to them, she was sure.

But it was her job to keep him human.

He let out his breath. "It'll be quicker if I carry you."

It was only moments before they were gone. She didn't glance back. Instead she huddled down into Riose's grip, into all the safety remaining to her and didn't dare to think how close they might have come to disaster if Chatoya hadn't intervened, if...

But help was coming. That was all that mattered.

X - X - X - X - X

Chatoya leaned back against the door. There was no mistaking the tension in her body, born as much of despair as of anger. She closed her eyes; for a moment, only a moment, and he wondered what images taunted her in the darkness of her thoughts.

"You did what you had to," Cougar said quietly from where he was sat on the couch. Common sense had kept him out of sight; now he got up, not sure if she would welcome comfort.

"I did what they made me do." Her voice was ragged. "I did what he wanted."

He eyed her, then said carefully, "You did the right thing, babe."

Her eyes flew open: wild, turbulent, they belonged to a stranger. The girl he had always known had been so serene, able to find a pool of stillness in herself even when all the world was crumpling about her. No more. The years and the Furies had changed her.

"Then why has it all gone wrong?" she demanded. "I tried to keep Delphine Thetis away from us, and now she's Blue's, heart and soul, same as all the others. If I hadn't _meddled_," the word tripped off her tongue coated in acid, "he'd have Riose and Celia Slone to play with too."

Heart and soul? No, he didn't think that was right. Delphine Thetis, it seemed to him, had a lot of both, but she didn't belong to Blue, no matter what his half-brother had tried to take from her. As for Riose, he'd wrested free of Nightfire long ago, and wasn't so stupid as to fling away his freedom. And Celia – well, she was a Slone. He suspected that even Blue wouldn't want to explain his darker deeds to her mother.

Whose heart and soul was she really so afraid for?

"It hasn't gone wrong," he said. "if anything, it sounds like it's starting to go right. You've deprived that bastard of his pickings for tonight – you've helped Phi Thetis, you've helped Celia and Riose. Where's the problem?"

"I'm trying to keep the Furies away from Ryars Valley!" she snapped, and shoved herself away from the wall as if she might fly at him. "I've spent so much time trying...and he's won again."

"Won?" he echoed softly, astounded. "When did this start being about winning? I thought this was about doing what was right."

She stared at him, bewildered, silent. Then something fractured in her face, and she was trembling. "What's happened to me, Cougar?" she whispered. "I don't even know who I am anymore."

Nearly a Fury, he thought. Nearly lost.

"You're not who you were, Toya," he said quietly.

She looked past him, eyes elsewhere. "I can't be who I was. Do you think I could survive the Furies if I was?"

"Yes," he answered, honest, needing her to see what the rest of them had seen so clearly and been unable to speak of. "I think you could. You're so strong, maybe stronger than anyone I've ever known. You used to care about what was right. You were going to change them – but somewhere along the way, they changed you. I've never seen you turn your back anyone – but you left Phi Thetis to that slimy son-of-a-bitch like you didn't care. You sent her into Blue's arms! Christ! She's a kid, a scared kid and you sent her to him."

"I...I..." She crumpled – she was falling, and he couldn't see her face because it was lost in the mesh of black hair and white fingers. "I thought it was what was right."

He knelt down, but didn't dare touch her. Somewhere, she had become distant, separated by her secrets. "No, babe. It was what you wish someone had done for you."

Her laugh was choked with tears. "That obvious, huh?"

"Little bit, yeah," he muttered. "To people who know you."

"What am I going to do?" Her voice was forlorn.

"Be yourself," he said. "Kick some ass. Do some good. Stop regretting." He brushed her arm; her eyes gazed at him like a trapped creature. "Come over to Jepar's tonight and talk to some people who know damn well who you are."

Her smile was flickering and unsure. "I could do that."

"Good." He blew her a kiss, and left her there. The rest was up to her. And he hoped, god, he hoped, that she would come back to them. "See you later, then."

X - X - X - X - X

Finn had to stagger to a stop as a stitch bit into his side. Jo had streaked off ahead long ago and only her terse stream of directions kept him on her trail. They had to keep back to make sure Don didn't notice them, but Jo knew Phi's scent well enough to follow her through hell.

Riose burst into his head, radiating cold purpose. _We're coming back to you. Help's on the way._

_It had better be powerful help. We've just found out who's behind all this._

_Yeah, I thought it was the Furies, but looks like I was wrong. Who's pulling the strings?_

Finn still could hardly believe it himself. It seemed like a fairy tale. _Avarice ap Sangager._

_Oh…shit._

_My thoughts exactly._

_Well, the Furies have sent us some help. Someone who swore to protect Phi, apparently,_ Riose said.

Finn sincerely hoped they were someone big and bad enough to take on Avarice ap Sangager. He had only heard a few stories about her, but none of them had been pleasant. Anyone who'd managed to give their name to a personality trait like that wasn't going to be.

And then a new voice broke over them like a waterfall, feminine and ancient yet strangely gentle. _That would be me._

He could sense Riose's surprise. _And you are…?_

_Ryar ap Sangager. Who should I be heading towards?_

Finn recovered himself in time to say, _Err, me. Are you really Ryar ap Sangager – didn't you make the mer?_

_Yes and yes, and on my way._

The contact broke: he and Riose were left in a puddle of stunned silence.

_You know, _Finn said thoughtfully_, I think we might be okay after all._

Riose sounded more cheerful. _Yep. If there's one person you really don't want crashing in on your grab for power, it's got to be your incredibly powerful and pissed-off younger sister._

_Barbecue at mine after? Dish of the day: tuna steaks._

He felt Riose's amusement, grim but there. _Let's get Phi before we start planning the victory celebrations._

_Pragmatist,_ Finn muttered sulkily.

He broke the contact – and started. A woman was waiting for him, a woman as willowy and graceful as a twist of smoke. He wondered if he should bow, but settled for gawping at her. How had she moved so fast?

He'd expected some kind of wild beauty. Once the shock of her was past him, he saw she was slight. Her face held no great wisdom, nothing but an uncertainty that he hadn't expected at all, despite the weight of power in her gaze.

"Um...hi," he said weakly. Not perhaps his most eloquent moment.

Ryar ap Sangager raised an eyebrow. "Shall we go?"

"This way," he muttered, picking up Jo's trail again.

He was walking with a legend. Yet in the faded light, she looked frighteningly ordinary.

X - X - X - X - X

Phi could not say how long she floated amidst memories, besieged by her terror. Time and again she tried to master it, only to have it master her. She was beaten down by the bar of his arm across her throat, by her feet scuffing on the ground, by the silky threats he hissed in her ear.

It seemed that past, present and future met and meshed and he sat at their center, the only certainty left in her life: Don Ivan.

And suddenly, his grip was gone – she slammed into a stone floor, and only gazed at it stupidly for a moment. Free of the scent, the feel, the sight of him, some of her fear slackened. She could think again: she was somewhere cold, stinking of smoke.

Phi raised her head. What met her eyes made no sense. The vast cavern, lit by coughing torches, she could understand. Directly in front of her was a throne made of stone, that too made sense.

But what was in it...

It couldn't be alive. Nothing that looked like that could be. It was so decayed that it took her long minutes to see the shapes of humanity – those blind white globs had been eyes, and the sloughing, grey-green matter was skin. The curled, brittle twigs were fingers, oozing blood where the knuckles divided; slowly she divined nose and lipless, sneering mouth, then she saw the hitch of the chest, and recoiled.

It was alive. Whatever this pathetic thing was, it lived.

Then she heard Don, his voice full of reverence. "I have brought her."

The voice that spilled over her like poison was surprisingly strong, melodious. It shouldn't have belonged to something like that. And Phi stopped pitying the creature, and began to fear it.

_And she will be yours when I am done with her. How small she looks. I expected...more._

"Who are you?" she whispered, needing confirmation even knowing the answer.

And the laughter that rolled from it was rich, sleek, satisfied. _Surely you know that much by now. Or did my burning one truly keep his promise? How – unlikely. _

Even the allusion to Zeke was excruciating. Phi fought for calm: she found only fear.

It leaned forward – no, she, she leaned forward. _Tell me who I am,_ she demanded, and Phi heard a savage need in that voice. _Say my name!_

"Avarice," she said helplessly. "Avarice ap Sangager."

_And all the roads we have to walk are winding  
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding  
There are many things that I would like to say to you  
But I don't know how_

X - X - X - X - X


	22. Chapter Twenty Two

Well, not sure what's going on with FFN's new 'improved' document manager, so forgive an editorial weirdness, please. Happy Easter! In the spirit of the season I bring you all the hallmarks of a good Easter. Bloodshed! Sacrifice! Bunnies! (Well, two out of three...)

Thank you to those most fantastic people who were kind enough to review last time around. Thank you: **CalliopeMused, Kichiko**, **Lunair**, **Silvia**, **ScorpioSky, Anterrabae, Yen**, **terrorofthehighway**, **yukatalamia, Queen of Slayers, sushi**, and saving the best for last, **Shelli**.

As you may well be able to tell, I adore hearing what you think.

Lyrics belong to Duncan Sheik's 'Now or Never'. I hope you enjoy,  
Ki

**Ripples Part Twenty Two**

_Could I change the way you feel?  
Could I make you see there's more than holding on?  
Could you ever let your heart believe again?_

"No," Zeke said flatly to Marie Thetis. "I wouldn't hurt Phi. I couldn't."

Her laugh was bones cracking. "You wouldn't be here if you hadn't already done that. See, I know your life backwards. I know you've already broken her heart."

He didn't want to think of it. He couldn't, or he would hear those words again as if they were scored into his flesh: _I think I could have loved you._

As Avy's curse continued its work, it seemed only fit penance for what he had done to Phi. The slender chance that he could somehow help her was all that kept him from yielding to the pain, from crawling back to Avy and demanding she put him out of his misery at last.

"I didn't want to," he said.

"Do you think I care? You hurt my little girl. And I suppose I should thank you for helping me, but what does that matter if she's lost? If she's..."

A sob shattered her words.

"Her and Daniel," she whispered. "I tried so hard to save them and I lost them both."

She was an uncanny reflection of Ryar in the days before the war, when she had watched it loom ever nearer while all her hope drained away. Her eyes had been as dead and tired too.

But Ryar hadn't known everything about prophecy. Fearing it, loathing it as she had, she had never questioned the mechanics or the limitations of her ability. It had taken Avy to make him understand that – Avy ploughing grimly through her own future with nothing to guide her but her need to survive.

"Maybe not," he said.

"There is no hope," she said leadenly. "The pod is broken."

"No," he said fiercely. "There's still hope. And don't tell me that you've seen every possible future – you haven't. You can't. Even Ryar couldn't. She didn't foresee that the witches could win the war. And do you know why?"

She gazed back, uncomprehending.

"If you can't believe in it, you can't see it. And Ryar never had any belief in herself. She still fought for them, but only because she thought it was right, not because she had any hope at all of victory."

Bemusement made her face soft, an illusory youth. "What?"

"It's the only limitation of your gift."

"That and the gruesome death," she said curtly. "I've never heard of this before."

"You wouldn't have. It's not common knowledge. My owner studied prophecy. It was her...hobby."

Yes, Avy had studied it in cruel, slow ways, stealing those with even a hint of prophecy from their homes and keeping them shut in the dark as she made them look into the future for her. She could dredge forth no future which showed her youth returned, but she did discover the limits of belief.

So many died for it. And it would almost be worth it if it could save Phi now.

"And who is this mighty owner, who knows what Ryar ap Sangager didn't?" Marie said acidly.

"Avarice ap Sangager," he said softly. "And she has Phi."

Shock blanched her.

"So believe," he said. "Believe that Phi is human, and that I can help her, and find me the future that I need to save her. Please."

"I...I don't know if I can," she whispered. "My Daniel is gone. If Avarice ap Sangager is truly behind this, how can anyone hope to stand against her? Why does she even want Phi?"

"Avy wants to be young again – beautiful again. The war left her mutilated. Phi has some part to play in helping her, but I don't know what. I do know that she won't survive it. You have to believe – if you don't..."

The door slammed downstairs. Both of them jumped, and Zeke grabbed for the rolling pin again, ignoring the fingers that swelled and broke. Feet thundered up the stairs – the door opened-

"Dan!"

Daniel Thetis gazed around the room in bewilderment, taking in Laurence Ivan's slumped form, his wife pale in the bed, the stranger whose wounds bloomed like a grotesque garden at every changing moment. Then with three steps he was at the bed and clutching his wife, cupping her face and kissing her as if he had thought he'd never see her again.

"You're wet..." she said dazedly, touching his hair. "They...he..."

"That little bastard tried to drown me," Phi's father said grimly. "He didn't succeed." He turned to Zeke. "I assume you're the reason Marie is safe."

"Yes," he said huskily. "And the reason Phi is in danger." His knee dislocated under him, and Zeke groaned, clinging to the furniture until it healed.

"Is that so?" her father said, ice in each word.

"But I want to, to try and make amends," he said, and coughed up smoke again. "I-"

"I know who he is," Marie said softly, interrupting him. "I've seen him, Dan. And...and if what he says is true, maybe he can help us to save Phi." Her eyes were liquid, shining. "I didn't think you would come back to me. If you can, maybe she can."

Daniel Thetis's eyes gauged him, calm. "I trust my wife," he said quietly. "What do you need?"

"I need her to look into the future and believe that Phi can be saved-"

"No!" Daniel turned to his wife, white as she was. "It will kill you, Marie."

"I'm dying anyway," she said quietly. "A few days, that's all. You know it as well as I."

"And if you see nothing that will help her?" he whispered. "I can't lose you both."

"Trust me," she said. "You trusted me every other time. I'm not afraid. I have you here, and I have a beautiful daughter who won't let herself die for the pod – a beautiful daughter that I won't let die either."

"Marie," he pleaded, but Zeke could see that all the fight had gone from him.

"Hush," she said gently, and then she closed her eyes.

Moments passed: she was still as a wax doll, except for sweat that beaded at her forehead. Slowly the colour drained from her until her skin seemed thin as a camellia petal, clinging to her skull. Breath barely stirred her; other than that, she might already have been dead, an effigy of herself.

Beside her, Daniel Thetis held her hand and waited with slumped shoulders.

Her body jolted violently. She took an almighty gasp - her eyes flung wide open, and she gazed up at her husband. She strained for breath. "One thing you must do for me..."

"Anything."

"You must stay here. You mustn't go to Phi. You'll only be...used to hurt her." Her hand fluttered feebly, beckoning Zeke.

He staggered over, leaning down to her greyed lips. Her voice was nearly gone, a thin thread of sound.

"You were right..." she said. "I had to believe. So do you. Be...be what you are, and you can save her. Dan..."

Zeke felt an intruder on the two of them, the intensity palpable. Her husband bent close, stroking her hair with hands that shook.

"I have always loved you, you know," Marie said in a voice that was rough with pain. "And you loved me too..."

"I still love you, you stupid woman," was his ragged reply, and tears streamed down his face. "Why couldn't you stay?"

She took a great, ragged breath as if to answer: only air slid out in a soft, surprised way, and then she was still.

Daniel Thetis cried out; he touched her hands, her hair, her cheeks as if he could rekindle her life by sheer force of will, as if he could hold off the truth a little longer. He lifted her into his arms, cradling her, forehead bent to hers in a last embrace.

When he raised his head, his eyes were red and terrible. "Go. You have killed my wife. Now save my daughter."

Stumbling, Zeke went, not daring to say that her words had been a riddle and not an answer. Behind him, harsh, broken sobs wracked the night. He could bear no more weeping – it had to end, even if he couldn't see how. There was a way. Marie Thetis had seen it.

And if he didn't know what she had meant, he knew where to go: back to the cold cavern where Avarice ap Sangager defied death.

X - X - X - X - X

Jo was waiting for them against a wall of rock, back in human form. Her eyes widened at the sight of Ryar ap Sangager; at Finn's small nod of confirmation, she made a gruff bow.

"Don't," Ryar said with something close to horror. "Those days are long gone."

"Tell that to your sister."

Ryar's face was set, determined. "I intend to."

Jo gestured and Finn saw that the wall funnelled into a narrow, black passage. "I think you'll find her there. If you need help, just scream horribly, and we'll know it's not going well." Her claws glimmered against the rock like seed pearls. "We might not be dragons, but I'll bet we've got a trick or two that might come in handy."

Power unfurled around Ryar – Finn gasped as it hit him, immense, squeezing the breath from his lungs before it was pulled under her control. It shook the air about her so that everything seemed in motion, so that she was the still point of a world in chaos.

"So I have I," said Ryar.

Then, finally, he believed that it could be all right.

When she vanished into the tunnel, he felt as if some of the light had gone from the world. And for a moment – just a moment – he wished he could have lived in the Burning Times and tasted that power and that awe every day.

Instead, he lit a fire from some twigs and crouched close to it, trying to ignore how feeble his own magic felt.

X - X - X - X - X

_So you know me_. Avarice ap Sangager's voice was full of satisfaction. One hand caressed a little bag as if it held precious gems. Phi kept her eyes on it; better than looking up to see the rest of her, decaying but still alive.

"What do you want with me?" croaked Phi. "I don't have any power. I'm not even mer."

That brittle laughter rattled in her head for a long time. _You don't know, do you? Did your mother really shelter you so much?_

"I don't understand.".

_A woman like her would never be any use to me. She'd rather die than let her precious gift be used by me. So would any of the seers who came before her. A proud, stubborn lot, all of them. _

"I'm not a seer," she said, baffled.

_Not yet. But you will be._

"No. There are no more seers. My mother is the last," she insisted. A quick glance at Don showed equal bemusement on his face. "She wouldn't...she wouldn't lie..."

But the words withered in her mouth as she thought of all the lies her parents had told – the truths buried, the past they had striven to conceal from her.

"I can't be," she whispered, and the stone floor swallowed the words. "I've never had the d-dreams-"

Except for the dream of Zeke, burning up. Except for the vision of her friends trapped in mirrors. Except for that ancient memory of Ryar and Zeke.

No...

_Deny it all you want,_ the thing upon the throne said, amused. _The truth will make itself known soon enough._

She felt sick to her stomach. If it was true, there was only one way for her to become the next seer. Her mother would have to die.

And although she had lived in expectation of it for many years, although she had known it was inevitable, she felt tears clawing their way up her throat. All the cruel words she had said crowded in on her, the anger, the pain – and everything that her mother had said or done shone in a new, alien light.

She had tried to protect her, in her way. Her mother hadn't known how else to do it.

"Don't kill her," she pleaded.

_Sweet, but stupid._ She heard the scorn in its voice. _You will pick up her mantle. You will do what she could not. And you cannot do that while she lives._

To hear her mother's words parroted so effortlessly back her was like a punch to the gut. Suddenly she understood that Avarice ap Sangager had seen everything – had watched over it all like a spider dangling above the sticky trap of her web.

It poured cold anger into her. Phi began to glimpse how they had been used and moved, mere pawns in this vast and elegant game that led to some conclusion she could not foresee.

Yet.

She was her father's daughter, and she had to be brave. And now she had to be her mother's daughter too, and be strong.

"But she does still live," she said grimly.

_Are you so sure?_ Avarice said, and her laughter began to spill over the air, triumphant.

It spiralled into Phi's head, until it seemed that all she could hear was the echo of laughter: and then it faded, as all the world about her faded.

She was beside her mother's bed, and every figure in the room was thin and shadowy, except for her mother who shone with a strange, pearly light. Those grey eyes looked straight at her, and it seemed that she heard something her mother had said to her long ago, when she had been a child wanting to know her own future.

_Seers live and die on turning points. Our last gasp can change the world if we wish, as mine will. I saw my death long ago – it is the only point of our own lives we can see, the only time we cannot choose. I saw my death, and I saw you rise up, and shine..._

"No," she whispered in a world where no one could hear her.

It seemed her mother looked at her, saw her, knew her.

"I have always loved you, you know," she said in a voice that was rough with pain. "And you loved me too..."

"Yes, always," she whispered, not knowing if she would be heard. It didn't matter about the arguments, the heated words; it only mattered that her mother was dying, that there was nothing beyond this but silence and grief and the love that limped on, bisected, bereft, unreciprocated.

She felt her mother's life vanish as softly and lightly as a dandelion seed blown away by the wind. A wild, anguished cry rose up and she didn't recognise it as her own before the world twisted again and she was thrown into the future.

Prophecy exploded in her veins like fireworks, overriding her grief with callous indifference. She saw...

A girl with blond hair and wolf-green eyes stood on the jetty at the lake, whistling a song that quivered on the air. Her successor. The same girl, older and wilder, slapping a boy in the street as passers-by tried not to stare; tripping down stairs with a terrible cry, diving into the lake, scribbling at school, dancing under flashing lights, doing handstands in a garden, shouting, screaming, laughing, crying.

The future whirled dizzily past her, flash after flash – her head thundered as if it might burst open. She screamed at the intensity of it, barely able to hear her own voice over the sounds and sights of a world as yet unborn, shouts and songs and traffic melding into one ceaseless roar...

It was gone.

She collapsed to the floor, her muscles water.

Her mother was gone.

Avarice was watching her with a red and gummed smile. _So she is dead._

Phi hated her glee, her triumph. Hated her because it was true.

She had to think of her mother as angry, proud, determined. To think of her any other way was to quiver on the edge of grief, knowing she might crumble and be unable to fight.

So she raised her head and got to her feet, because she was her father's daughter, and she looked her enemy in her blind eyes and swore to overthrow her, because she was her mother's daughter. "What do you want from me?"

"The same as she always wants," a new voice said that Phi recognised at once. "Everything."

There, stood beneath the vast arch of the entrance, slight and pale as a snowdrop against the darkness, was Ryar ap Sangager.

X - X - X - X - X

"Riose! Cee!" Finn stood as they burst out of the woods. He felt jittery with worry, but some of that eased as he saw that Celia's hand was healed and neither of them looked hurt. Riose put her on her feet with what seemed a reluctance to let go of her, which a new and interesting development that Finn would have to interrogate him about later. "You took your time."

"I was getting us some supernatural help, in case you've forgotten," the vampire retorted. He glanced at the tunnel. "In there?"

"Yeah." Finn couldn't help but notice his wary tone. "That a problem?"

"I think it might be," Riose said grimly. "There's a huge cave system under the valley. Fireblade built it – it's where Nightfire was founded."

"That's creepy, darling, but I don't see how it's an issue," Jo murmured.

"He built spells into it. It destroys dragon powers – they're helpless. They're as human as you or me. If Ryar's in there..."

"Oh god," Celia breathed.

"We have to go in after them," said Jo. "Cee, you stay-"

"You need me along," she interrupted firmly. For some reason, she looked at Riose, and her face was gentler. "As a reminder. Ri will look after me."

He smiled rather shyly, and to Finn's immense surprise, said, "Stay close."

Jo's raised eyebrows said she was just as taken aback, but she gave no other reaction. "Then let's go."

"This is mad," Finn volunteered. He called up his strongest spells. It felt good: power hot and liquid in his veins, licking along his skin with the same fuzzy warmth as alcohol. For a moment, he believed himself invulnerable, invincible – a hero, if only in caves where dragons and mermaids had no power.

Then common sense reasserted itself.

"This is _insane_," he muttered, but sent fire to light their way as they followed the path down to where the wicked witch was waiting.

X - X - X - X - X

It was like something from a story. Phi gazed at Ryar, hardly able to believe it was real.

Ryar said, "Did you think I would abandon one of my own?" She sighed, gentle in her regret. "I couldn't save your mother, Phi. I'm sorry."

_Sister._ Astonishment and something incomprehensible in Avarice's voice. _You live_.

"As do you." It was pity soft in Ryar's eyes, in her outstretched hand. "Barely."

There was a terrible sound – a wet, fleshy ripping noise. Phi glanced back and gagged on the waft of foul odour that came as Avarice ap Sangager rose from her throne, sores breaking on her paper-thin skin, pus rolling down her legs.

_I am not what I was,_ Avarice said bitterly. _Are you?_

"Oh, Avy," Ryar said, fingers rising to cover her mouth. She came forward, fearless, able to look at this monstrosity and see – what? The sister she had known, perhaps.

_Don't pity me. _And then its mouth stretched open – yellowed teeth poked from shrivelled gums, and to Phi's astonishment, Avarice ap Sangager spoke with the last of her voice. "Heal me."

"I can't." Ryar's face creased with regret. "Avy, nothing I can do can heal this. I can't turn back time."

Avy's face twisted. Power blasted from her hands in a hot wind that flung Ryar to the tips of her toes, arms akimbo and a terrible scream torn from her throat. That beautiful gleaming hair streamed back, revealing her agonised face, all teeth and whites of her eyes, and the dark stubs of her horns laid bare.

Phi expected it to last seconds – that Ryar would fight back, but as time ticked by and still she hung there, shrieking and agonised, it became obvious that she couldn't.

"Stop," Phi cried, unable to bear it. "Please, stop. You'll kill her."

The blind eyes swivelled to her, and a thin smile stretched Avarice's face. _I suppose I might. And that would be a waste._

Avy clenched her fists and Ryar dropped to the ground, gasping.

"Heal me or die," she commanded again.

"She's a dragon," came Riose's voice, measured if croaky.

No...not him too.

She felt her heart sink as they came out from the shadows just as Ryar had; somehow smaller, a grim little knot. Finn had fire prickling between his palms, as lurid as his hair; Jo's eyes were that feral, bright green that promised claws and speed, and she saw the stillness, the calm about Riose that was the unmoving centre of a storm.

And Celia...

She shouldn't have come. She had already been hurt. None of them should have come.

And yet some small part of her could only feel glad that they had – that they were her friends more truly than she had ever guessed.

"Go," she mouthed, and Celia just gave her a look as mulish as it was wry.

"If that's really Ryar ap Sangager, she's the last living Drax. I think you might have a tough time killing her." Riose sounded as if he didn't quite believe it; as if he was testing for something.

A rattling sound emitted from Avarice. It was a moment before it was apparent as laughter. "Not here, boy. This is Nightfire's birthplace, and it was made to withstand the Soulless King himself. No living dragon can cast a harmful spell in here." With the slowness of age, Avy raised the little bag to her lips and kissed them. "Good job these are all dead. Now heal me, sister, or I'll have your horns for my collection."

When Ryar lifted her face, it was tearstained, and full of a kind of ferocity. It shone out from her as if she was the pole star, lighting the heavens, and for the first time Phi believed that this fragile woman might have forsaken everything she loved to save everything she believed in. "Then take them, Avy, but it will change nothing. You're old, my sister, and your beauty is gone forever."

The spell lanced out with such force that Ryar's entire body jackknifed, and she sprawled flat on the stone. Phi thought for a horrible moment that she was dead, but then she saw the slight twitch of her eyelids.

"Nothing is forever, is it, Ryar?" hissed Avarice. "Not even death. If you can walk back from that, then you can make me young."

Nothing but a slurred moan came from her lips in answer.

"Please..." Phi whispered and this time Avarice did hear her. Those clouded eyes turned to her and she wanted to buckle under their power.

"She's telling the truth," she said. "She couldn't...she couldn't heal my mother either."

She pressed a hand to her mouth to hold back the grief. She couldn't think of it, couldn't let it be more than dry words. In her mind, the truth kept trying to surface: that body so still in the bed, her ash grey hair spread on the pillow and her father sitting grim, heartbroken vigil until his daughter returned to make them a family again.

Words, just words...

"There is _nothing_ she could not heal!" Avarice declared. "She bought back our brother from death."

"Death is not time," Riose said coolly, and now Phi was grateful for his support. "There are a thousand spells that can look into the past, but none that can turn it into the present. Don't you think it would have been done by now? Do you think you're the only one to quest for eternal youth?"

"I was the first!"

"And you have failed." He approached, slender and fearless. "Time flies, it crawls, it can be lost and it can be made and it can be stopped if you have power enough, but it cannot be turned or undone. Even humans know that."

Suddenly Riose was flung backwards, sailing through the air like a doll. She heard Celia shriek, but there was nothing any of them could do except watch him hit the wall opposite and crumple into a boneless heap.

But Avy was not done – she flexed her hands as if she expected claws to spring forth, and deep gashes opened on his skin; he jerked, once, twice, and blood spattered the air.

No-

And Jo was moving after him, her body streamlining, blurring. Behind her, fire flew from Finn's fingers in deadly darts.

Another twist of Avy's fingers – the darts hit a shield and rebounded. Suddnely Finn was dodging his own spell. A choked sound, a strange symbol in the air, and just as easily Jo was caught mid-spring, frozen.

Avy tilted her head, sending skin sloughing down her neck. _Do you really have nine lives? _

Jo's eyes were wide, black; her paws scratched uselessly at the air.

_Let's find out,_ Avy said, and Jo went cartwheeling across the cavern. She hit the wall with a terrifing thud and pitched to the floor, her body shuddering back into human form. A graze smeared with dirt covered her cheek, and Phi expected her to get up and dust herself off.

She didn't.

Don Ivan strutted up to Finn - and strut it was, devoid of fear. Finn never flinched - and the fire between his hands streamed at Avy, as if that might do anything when it was Don stalking closer with cruelty in his eyes. She knew why - because she was next to Avy, because he put her first, as he always did.

She opened her mouth to scream at him not to be so stupid-

The flames slid around Avy; her chuckle was a feral, snarled sound – the fear in Finn's face was dreadful, but he didn't falter, didn't look away as Don grbbed him and held the witch ready for whatever judgment Avy laid upon him-

Phi didn't realise she had grabbed Avy's arm until she was wrestling with her, until she was slammed to the ground with a force that sent her into brief, pained darkness.

X - X - X - X - X

_Be what you are._

And what was he? As he dragged himself through the woods, Zeke dwelled on the question, desperately seeking an answer. The closer he came to Avy, the more his panic grew. What use was the vision if he couldn't bring it to life?

What was he? A slave. A fool. A liar. A toy.

No. She must have meant something else.

What was he?

Suddenly the answer came to him with terrible simplicity. What he was at his core, beyond his flesh.

Fire.

He was fire, all-consuming, all-devouring.

And at last he realised that he had always known it would come to this. He had known from the minute Avy laid the curse upon him. Already he had ceased to belong to her; his loyalty had lain with Phi. And because of that, in word and thought he had betrayed Avy and now, inevitably, in deed.

His bones creaked under the weight of the truth, the pain flaring with each movement. He forced his eyes open, half-blind by tears that turned to steam as they left him. The woods wavered before him, but everything else seemed terribly clear.

He loved her. He loved her more than life itself, than this sham life of pain and servitude. He had dreamed of freedom as if it was a holiday, streamers and parties and noise. He hadn't realised it could be so simple as a girl by a lake, and the beginning of wonder.

He stepped forward, grimacing against the pain. From tree to tree he staggered, fresh wounds opening on and under his skin with each instant. He stumbled when his shin broke; when it was healed enough, he hoisted himself up and on towards that place where he knew she was.

Aching, Zeke went to Delphine Thetis and so inexorably, to Avarice ap Sangager. There was just one thing left to do.

It was all he could give her now: all he owed.

_And you know you gotta choose  
And you know that you're afraid of what you'll lose  
How can you believe what just ain't true?  
I know it's now or never  
How could you ever say goodbye  
When you see forever here in my eyes?_

X - X - X - X - X


	23. Chapter Twenty Three

So, I have gone from being on time with every part to being early on this one. Paint me very surprised. There's only one part remaining after this - I actually finished slightly early! - and Ripples is done.

Thank you vast amounts to those most wonderful, angelic people who reviewed last time - thank you: **Kichiko**, **Lunair**, **CalliopeMused, yukatalmia, Shiegra, Lethe**, **Queen of Slayers**, and last but by no means least, the lovely **Shelli**

I adore hearing what you think. I can take criticism so please fire away - there's still lots to work on!

Lyrics from Stevie Nicks' rather beautiful _Dreams_.

- Ki

**Ripples Part Twenty Three**

_Well, here I go again  
I see the crystal vision  
Well, I keep my visions to myself  
It's only me that wants to be wrapped around your dreams  
And have you any dreams you'd like to sell?_

"Ri..."

That was Celia crying, why was she crying...?

Riose.

Groggy, Phi realised she couldn't have been out for more than a few seconds. Her head was pounding and she could taste blood in her mouth, but if that was the worst of her injuries, she'd got away lightly.

"Are you all done with theatrics?" Avy said calmly. "Yes, of course you are."

Unseen power hauled her up into the air, and Phi forced herself to stay limp. Her fingers scraped along the floor and the weight of her hair fell away as her head lolled back; she felt exposed, knowing that Avy could do anything she wanted. And knowing that her only safety lay in playing dead.

She opened her eyes a slit. It wasn't a reassuring sight.

Ryar was slumped on the floor, bloody streaks along her body. Small gasps escaped her as new marks appeared, as if fingers had gouged burrows in her flesh. Beyond her, Phi could make out a shock of red hair as Finn convulsed on the ground, hands clawing at empty air.

Don loomed over him, eyes dreamy and fascinated as he twirled one finger. A choked, wordless sound came from Finn; and slowly Phi saw the pattern of his seizures matched the lazy spin of Don's finger.

The pleasure in Don's face was frightening.

"Can I kill him?" he enquired, voice thick with desire.

"Not yet," Avy said dismissively. "Never kill what you can use."

"We have Ryar. We have Phi. We don't need her friends."

"I think you underestimate my sister. The suffering of others is the only thing that can move her to action. Get up, Ryar."

"I can't," croaked Ryar.

Avarice laughed. It was raspy, rattling, the sound of something near to death. "Then I'll help you."

She lurched past Phi, the exposed sinews withered, pulling in horrible motion. Ryar was dragged to her knees with a strangled cry, her head forced back.

"How times have changed, sister," Avarice said quietly, sliding a yellowed nail down Ryar's neck. "The world was at your feet once. Now you are at mine."

"I didn't want the world," Ryar gasped, her voice scraped thin and high by Avy's chokehold.

"More fool you."

"I can't heal you, Avy."

Phi expected that to anger Avy, but a twist of a smile bared her shrunken gums. "You would believe that. How sweet it must be for you to see me like this, for you to be the only siren left. You were nothing in the Soulless Court, sister, and you are only something now because the rest of us are forgotten and decayed."

"Do you think I want to see you like this?"

Avy yanked back her head further; Ryar groaned, the tendons on her neck taut. It seemed that they might snap at any moment.

Could Ryar die here? If her powers were useless, did that make her human? And what would happen to the rest of them – how could her friends possibly hope to survive…?

"I remember well when you were a mistake our father made," Avy snarled, and the space was swollen with her rage; vast, more animal than human. "You were a shadow, nothing but a voice in darkness. And you would have been a shadow forever if Fireblade hadn't raised you high and married you to hurt me!"

"Please..."

"He never loved you," Avy hissed, and threw Ryar forward: unable to brace herself, she hit the floor hard, yet for a moment, Phi thought she had sprung to her feet - then she saw that Ryar was rising up and up...

Her feet left the ground, kicking furiously as Avy's magic raised her high once more. She writhed like an eel, eyes bulging and afraid, and Phi realised that she had seen that frantic dance in movies. Her fingers fluttered at her neck like moths as Avy's smile spread until her face seemed nothing but a grinning skull.

In front of her eyes, Ryar ap Sangager was being hanged.

And then somehow, words drifted between Ryar's gasps. "I...know..."

The magic vanished; she hit the floor like a dropped puppet, a limp tangle of arms and legs.

"What?"

And Phi glimpsed something she had never expected to see on Avarice ap Sangager: hope.

Ryar's body heaved as she drew in breath after breath. At last she said shakily, "He didn't love me. He had only one great love..."

"Who?" Avy demanded breathlessly.

"I did envy you, my sister." She coughed, a rickety broken sound. "I envied you him."

Avy let out a wild whoop. It echoed eerily about the cavern.

"But I still can't heal you," Ryar said, her face hopeless.

"Belief," Avy whispered. "That's all you need."

"I ca-"

She was cut off; Avy scrabbled in her little bag, and Ryar was dragged across the ground by unseen hands until she was at her sister's bony feet, wheezing for air.

Avy reached out; she caught Ryar's face in one hand while the other was still moving in the bag, still drawing magic from the dragon horns within it. Phi could barely comprehend how she had acquired such trophies – but she knew now where Don had found his new power.

"By the blood between us," Avy said, and Phi seemed to hear her voice echoing underneath as if she had heard these words before, "by the past that binds us..."

_By the bond between us, by the magic that binds us..._

"You will do everything in your power to heal me and do nothing that will harm me."

_you will reveal nothing of our plans to Delphine Thetis or anyone else_

"Not by word or thought or deed."

Shock lanced through her. _Not by word or thought or deed._

That was why those words had resounded so strongly in Zeke's mind – he had broken the oath that had bound him, broken it for her.

And suddenly Avy's words took on new and sinister meaning.

"And should you break this agreement, may your heart tear in its cage and your skin rip from your bones and your blood become thorns in your veins."

What had he done? she thought frantically, scrabbling for the soulmate link. What had he done for her?

It was there – still a bright gleam at the back of mind like a distant star, and she reached for it with new urgency, with panic and guilt-

A blast of pain jolted from her head to her feet; so vast, so intense that she thought she might burn into nothing right then – her heart was bloody shreds in her chest, her skin peeling away like the skin of an orange, everything pain and the promise of pain...

It was gone. Phi was left hanging in the clutches of alien magic. For the first time, she began to glimpse what courage it must have taken to break the oath.

Tears burned at her eyes, unnoticed by anyone.

"So I heal you or I die," Ryar said softly.

"You were a great visionary once," Avy said, cool, scornful. "You can heal me, sister. There is a future that will show you how."

"I gave up my gift."

"To the mer. And their next seer is in front of you. Take back your gift."

Ryar was ashen, shaking her head. "No...Avy, no..."

"Do you think you have a choice?" Avy hissed.

Choice...

From start to finish, it had always been about choice. Gripped by power far superior to her own, Phi saw suddenly that despite it all she had a choice left to her. The future lay open to her, ripe with possibility, ripe with change.

Zeke made the choice. How could she do any less? A piece of her life for them – for all of them, for Celia and Ri and Jo and Finn and Ryar. They would do the same for her, and perhaps they already had.

"I can do it," she said into the potent silence. "It's my gift."

Avy's head snapped to her. Phi forced herself not flinch. "And why would you?"

"Because I want to live," she said from a throat scoured by tears. "I want my friends to live. I don't want to die here. Don't give me to Don, and I'll find you that future."

"How honest." Avarice ap Sangager considered her. "Very well."

"What about my promise?" Don said sharply.

"I have no further use for you," Avy informed him, calm.

A nasty smile curled his mouth. "And I have the same powers as you, you stupid old hag," he said, and raised his hands-

Whatever he was expecting to happen clearly didn't. Avy still stood before him, unharmed, and the dumbstruck look he wore was almost enough to warm Phi's heart.

"You had the merest fraction of my powers," Avy corrected. "Did you honestly think me so stupid? What a child you are. And like a child, you are best seen and not heard."

She crooked a finger. Don's eyes opened wide; his mouth was a matching circle, his body arched as if against some tremendous pull. A gagging sound came from him – something stringy and pink flew from his lips and landed on the floor with a damp splat.

Phi stared at it, appalled.

Don was on his knees, gagging silently.

"I think those around you may find you rather more pleasant without the ability to speak," Avy remarked. Lacking even a hint of pity, she turned her attention back to Phi. "And you..."

Phi found herself being carefully set on her feet. When the magic supporting her vanished, she nearly fell, her legs weak, her entire body bloated with fear. In her mind, the future hovered like a vulture.

"Look," Avy commanded. "Make me young."

Obediently, she closed her eyes. And there her submission ended. She could feel the multitude of possibilities waiting at threshold between her and her gift. All she had to do was search for the one she wanted. And that was what she intended to do; look for the future _she_ wanted.

A future that would show her how to defeat Avarice ap Sangager.

A breath. And Phi threw a piece of her own life to the winds as she plunged into a morass of futures, her purpose fixed firmly in her mind. Sounds and colours swum around her, flashing by in an array of flickering moments. Tens, hundreds, thousand passed her by...

And then she was stood in the very same cave as she saw now; but there was movement, motion – she saw Ryar grabbing for the bag of horns, she saw the sisters wrestling, and she saw the future begin split and divide like light from a prism.

Ryar lost; Ryar died; Ryar lived mad and gibbering. None of those were what she sought. Every time, Avy overwhelmed Ryar with sheer desperation.

And then Phi saw something new – as they fought, she glimpsed herself, moving from friend to friend. Riose was still. Jo was still. They died before her eyes, slipping away like the night before she had even realised. Celia died in a burst of rage, of nobility, of foolish sacrifice.

Avy still won.

Finn-

She saw herself and Finn walking- no, running towards the sisters as they struggled in their private family battle. Fire twisted from Finn – not enough to harm, but enough to distract-

And Phi saw herself grab the horns and scramble away. She saw Avy screeching, powerless, folding in on herself like a house of cards.

She saw a future where they won.

X - X - X - X - X

She opened her eyes onto a world that seemed dim against the lush, colourful array of futures. Avarice ap Sangager was intent on her, and seeing hope in that ruined face was somehow worse than all her cruelty and indifference. It made Phi realise that there was something living in there, something that still knew how to dream.

And she would see them all die for her dream.

"I found it," she said. Her voice sounded oddly calm. "You need Ryar's horns. If you take them, if you consume them, all her healing power will be yours."

Ryar's gasp was harsh.

"Yes..." Avy sighed. "Oh yes…of course. I should have seen it sooner."

Phi forced herself to meet Ryar's eyes. They were wounded, startled. "I helped you," the Drax said in disbelief.

"I know," she said. "But I remembered Atlantis. I remembered that we were mighty once, because of your power."

Until they came to stop us, in mercy.

"I see," the Drax said leadenly.

She didn't know if Ryar had understood. She could only hope now.

Her shoulders slumped, Ryar tilted up her face as if in submission, and swept back her hair. It cascaded down her spine until it seemed a foaming white waterfall, the only shade of her power left to her here. But Avy was fixed upon the brown horns revealed at the peak of Ryar's forehead.

"Take them then," Ryar said dully. "I can't stop you."

Avy's yellowed fingernails settled about one. Ryar winced as the nails dug into her skin; a grimace drew back her lips as Avy's fingers squirmed tighter, deeper, and Phi realised that she meant to rip the horn clean from her sister's head.

As magic flooded the cave, the air felt heavy and charged, storm-threatened. And Avy was distracted, lips moving, speaking in a language Phi did not understand.

Ryar cried out; her lips were a pink stain against skin pale as milk. Her eyes begged Phi for help – chained by Avy's oath, she could only endure, only kneel and obey while the tears crawled down her cheeks.

And Phi wanted to go to her, but she knew that future ended in disaster. So instead, she turned away and she went to her friends.

Celia was crouched over Riose, sobbing even as she pushed her hands down onto his wounds, trying to stem the blood that slicked the ground. His chest hitched in sporadic motion, but there was no other sign that he lived.

Distorted by panic, Celia seemed a stranger. "I c-can't stop the bleeding."

"You can," Phi said quietly. "You have to or he'll bleed to death. Here."

The vision flickered in her mind. She lifted Celia's hands and replanted them inches away, over what she knew to be the deepest slash.

"Don't move," she said. "No matter what you see, you mustn't move. You can't help us. Ri needs you."

If Riose died, Celia died. She would need him to love her one day, love her more than life itself. Celia would need him to die for her.

But not today.

"Phi..." Her eyes were so young, so frightened. "Will it be okay?"

"Maybe. If we're lucky."

She knew she could spare no more time here. She had to be ruthless, to give herself entirely to the future she had chosen.

She'd tried so hard not to be, but she was still her mother's daughter.

And that was no bad thing.

Across the room, grime smeared Jo's arms, her hand fallen as if waiting for someone to take hold of it. Her hair was across her face, but one lime-green eye stared blankly. Phi limped over to her, and bent down, her knees shaky.

"Be okay, be okay," she whispered and nearly leapt from her skin when a mumble came back.

"M' playing dead...sensible thing...don't think I can get up, dar-dar-" A funny wheeze escaped her, faint as a leaf rustling. Alarmed, Phi felt for a pulse, but then the wildcat managed, "Get the bitch."

"You and me then," mumbled a familiar voice, and Finn put a trembling hand on her shoulder. "Told you this lot were flakes."

Jo made a noise that might have been weary laughter or protest.

"You and me," she said, and the rest of it hung unspoken.

To the end.

He was ashen, his skin yoghurt-white, obviously as wobbly as she herself felt. But of them all, he was the only one upright, the only one who could help her.

Despite the bleakness in his eyes, Finn never wavered. He raised a ghost of his cheeky grin and said, "This is what comes of saving yourself, Phi. Now you're going to die a virgin."

His misplaced levity brought a dour grin to her face. "No, I'm not."

"What? You gave yourself to another man?" He feigned outrage. "Usually it's death _or _glory. Trust you to want it all."

And suddenly she was giggling: hysterical, inappropriate laughter, but he was clasping her hand, her best friend, and they were walking towards Avy and Ryar still laughing because it was only the spot of brightness in this insane, horrible night.

They were her friends and they had come with her to fight and to die. They were her family and her blood as truly as the mer had ever been.

"We have to get those horns," she said. "I need you to distract her with magic. I'll only have one chance."

Avy was still focused on her grisly task. Blood oozed over her nails and down Ryar's temples to dilute her tears.

Finn stopped. "Why only one?" he said softly.

"You know why."

"Phi..."

"Don't argue. It has to be me. You're in no state to do anything except throw spells. Ryar can't." She clutched at his hands as if they were a lifebelt, as if she were drowning in the cold sea. "Don't make this hard, Finn. I don't want you to die here because of me."

"That doesn't mean you have to do a kamikaze run," he hissed harshly.

They were wasting time.

"Help me, or don't," she said. "But remember which one of us can see the future."

His eyes widened. "You can see the future? But your mom…"

There was no time to debate. There was no time to yield to the grief that waited, as much part of her future as her gift. "She died," she said harshly.

"Phi..."

But she couldn't bear the pity in his voice – she was turning, she was running as she had run down to the lake so many times, and the boy with fire in his eyes was all she could think of...

The world seemed to slow. Avy lifted her head – her fingers dipped and wriggled in the little bag, and her other hand was rising, nails clogged with blood, to point straight at her...

"Hey, ugly!" shouted Finn, and the blind gaze snapped to him, livid.

And fire was in the air – great rippling wreaths of it, masking her, burning along her arms as it seared towards Avy.

She knew what to do – she reached, straining. Nothing mattered but the horns, nothing but this one chance-

Material brushed her fingertips - for a wild moment, she thought it was enough.

And then the magic hit her.

It flung her back – she caught a glimpse of stone and didn't know whether it was ceiling or floor, and then she slammed into the ground, and knew one great, awful certainty.

She had failed.

X - X - X - X - X

Blue Malefici was nothing but an uneven shadow in the trees. He didn't shift, as he hadn't since Ryar had vanished into the caves. Patient, enduring, he was waiting.

The eleventh hour was almost here. And then, he supposed, he would have to go in and salvage something from this very intriguing affair. After all, those rocky walls contained several people who owed him favours. He wanted at least two of them alive.

But because he was patient, because he had troubled to eavesdrop on Delphine Thetis's dreams, he waited.

Then he heard something. Heavy, uneven footsteps. Laboured breath. And wafting across the air, the faint scent of gasoline and incense.

He settled back, invisible in the gloom.

Love burned. He knew that – he just hadn't expected to see the metaphor in action.

X - X - X - X - X

Hopelessness washed over her. It had been only the slimmest of chances, and it had gone wrong. Avy had won.

Everything felt sore. Burns from Finn's magic streaked her arms, speckled with blisters. Something was cut on her neck, and warm liquid trickled along her collarbone. She wanted to weep. For herself, yes, but mostly for her friends. She had failed them. She had been unable to save them as they had saved her.

"Stupid child," Avy hissed. "Don't you know the future yet?"

"I do," said a voice at the boundary of her hearing. It was low and rusty, but she knew its every nuance. "Shall I tell you?"

"No..." she whispered.

Zeke hung against the threshold as if he was a broken marionette.

Bleeding, his skin littered with sores, he moved with terrible slowness and each step brought new injuries, that burst on him like fireworks. Only his face was untouched, and she mapped it desperately, seeing in it myriad things: the boy with the fever-bright eyes, the stranger by the lake, devil, djinni, angel, her soulmate.

And as he reached the foot of the throne where Avy gawped at him, a bloody cross streaked over his face and Phi saw with sickening clarity the image of her dreams.

It was a future she had been unable to find, a future she did not want to believe. It drove into her like a knife.

"Don't!"

She tried to stand. Her muscles screamed and liquid slewed down her arms, but she was half-up, she was nearly there…

"My beginning was fire," he recited quietly. "My end shall be fire..."

Light exploded from him.

He was no longer flesh but flame. Avy flung spell after spell at him until the air groaned, but each was gradually absorbed into his burning body until the fire turned from orange to white, blazing so hot that Phi knew nothing could survive the heat and the power there.

No, not him too…he could not leave her...

Phi's legs buckled and she slid to her knees. "Not this."

She saw his determination waver – heartbreak there, raw, sweet, true in his face. Then he squeezed shut his eyes as if it was too hard to see her, but she reached for him frightened and desperate through the soulmate link, where he could not blind himself to her.

She crashed into a jumble of emotion that might have been hers or his; fear and anger and sorrow and passion, and above it all, his voice so torn and husky saying _I love you, I love you more than anything, all of it, everything… _

Then she was back in her own body, gasping in lungfuls of warm air.

Stay, she wanted to scream, denying the truth she had seen there. He couldn't be dying. He couldn't.

Through the flames, his eyes shone gold as the sun, and his last words were soft with wonder.

"And the truest of all my loves will be fire."

He caught hold of Avy and the flames erupted over them both in a column of white, blinding light that seared through the cavern and all the layers of earth above, but she saw none of it because she was doubled over, the link between them blazing every bit as fiercely.

She felt it snap in her heart like a wishbone as the light vanished, and she shrieked, curling around the emptiness he had left.

When at last, weeping, she could open her eyes, only a black scorch mark remained where the throne had been. She swept the cavern, roof to floor, and he was not there.

He was not there.

Nothing remained of him but ashes, drifting through the beam of moonlight that stole into the cavern. He was free at last. And she wept for him, for all of them, free and safe and oh god, so alone.

_And listen carefully to the sound_  
_Of your loneliness like a heartbeat, drives you mad,  
In the stillness of remembering what you had  
And what you lost._

X - X - X - X - X


	24. Chapter Twenty Four

So! In what I can only describe as a shock to me, I have actually finished this story a chapter earlier than expected. I was aiming for twenty five: I hit twenty four. It may be time for some kind of celebratory dance.

But before I get my groove on and send innocent bystanders to therapy, I would just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who commented last time round - thank you **Kichiko,** **yukatalamia, Takishia, , Lethe**, **CalliopeMused, Lunair,** **Shelli**, **Queen of Slayers**, **Shang Leopard** and last, but not least, the wonderful **Anterrabae.**

Thank you for reading; especially thank you to those who stuck with this story despite the massive months-long gap in the middle of it. Your patience, prodding and ass-kicking was very much appreciated! I have really loved hearing your thoughts, your comments, your criticisms and your kindness and patience in actually reading the beast. Thank you, whether you've been vocal or silent – it's still amazing to me that anyone reads what I write! You have massively improved this story.

Last part: lyrics belong to Dido's _Here With Me_.

Thank you!  
Ki

**Ripples Part Twenty Four**

_I didn't hear you leave  
I wonder how I am still here?  
And I don't want to move a thing  
It might change my memory_

The dress was beautiful. Midnight blue and patterned with lilies that burst on it like stars, it stopped at her calves and contrasted sharply against the long red fall of her hair. Lace framed her cleavage and the small silver pendant that hung there. In it, Phi looked strange and untouchable.

It was the last gift from her mother. Marie Thetis had even managed to determine what Phi wore for her funeral. The thought made her smile, and then made a lump rise in her throat until her smile fractured like glass.

"Baby…?" Her father sounded tired and hoarse, as he had for the past fortnight. "Are you ready?"

She composed herself. They had spent most of the night watching the pyre burning down, unable to drag themselves from her until there were only ashes and the last of the smoke wreathed against the dawn. Now it was time to bid her goodbye.

"Yes."

He opened the door cautiously, and she glanced over. In his suit, a deep indigo also chosen by her mother, he looked almost austere, bar his rumpled hair and red-rimmed eyes.

"You should brush your hair," she said.

"Does it really matter?"

"Mum would...she'd want you to. She'd tell you not to ruin her big day."

That drew a ragged laugh from him. "All right. Wait outside. I'll be down in a minute."

She left the house gladly. There was a hollowness about it now. Visitors had come every night in the two weeks since her mother died, and her father greeted them with shadows of his smile and kind words, but he was not the same. Phi thought he might never be again, and often, she was tempted to look – and held back.

The beginning of the summer seemed an age away, a looking-glass world of illusions. How naïve she had been then, a child, fierce and selfish and unknowing.

She lived between past and future, her present pressed between the two until it seemed slight as a butterfly. She was caught in a welter of grief, knowing that all things must end and that too many already had.

Phi began to understand how her mother must have felt, the same dreadful need to try and squeeze all the happiness from the future that she could. It must have been so easy to keep looking, to whisper the great lie to the mirror every night: _it's for the best._

And so when those thoughts nestled in her skull, she went out to the lake, and thought of the boy with fire in his eyes.

Some nights that was too painful, and so she would wander until her feet took her back to one of them.

Finn always came thundering down the stairs, hauling her into a hug and a gabble of news. All his gossip drove away the ghosts, bringing her back to the real world.

In Celia's house she let Jodie Slone mother her, because she missed it.

Celia would never again be so fearless – that memory was always there, crooking her little finger. And when make-up and magazines ran out, when words drifted into silence, Phi realised that Celia needed her. There was no one else who could understand what it meant to be human among the Nightworld, to know your own helplessness and yet hand yourself to them time and again.

Riose never cared what time she came to call, but he was invariably rumpled from sleep. It had taken nearly a week to heal his wounds, even with Chatoya Irkil's help.

He understood her dilemma, the same hard choice he made every day. Neither of them spoke about it. It was okay to sit in silence with Riose until she felt calm enough to leave. He reminded her why she held back, what she might awaken if she meddled in the future.

Jo refused to let her mope indoors – they went out into the woods or to gigs or to the shops, the wildcat hopping along gamely on her crutches. In a dizzying swirl of entertainment and crowds, Phi could never forget that she was just one of a multitude, and her problems shrank into insignificance.

So if she could not shake her loneliness, at least she was not alone. They made sure of that, and she loved them for it.

She was unsurprised to find all of them waiting outside the house with their families, dressed in the blue of mourning. They would be the first outsiders to come to a pod funeral since Aurora's death.

The world was changing for the pod – the future was ahead of them, and for the first time in years, they had no idea what it held.

She could have told them. But she held back, and every day, she chose. Every day, she refused to give up the gift that Zeke had sacrificed his life for.

Her freedom was all she had of him. Freedom, and the frail memory of the boy with fire in his eyes.

X - X - X - X - X

In his bedroom, Don Ivan lay in an endless maze of pain, addicted to a drug that no longer existed. He was hunted endlessly by monsters; he was drowning, burning, stabbed, choked, tortured. In his mind, he screamed and screamed, but no sound came from his mutilated throat.

He could not recall Ryar leaning over him, declaring that she had no way to heal him. He would survive or he would die, and that was all. The drug would devour his flesh before it burned itself out, and perhaps he would be left with enough of his organs to live.

All his beauty was shrivelling, melted into pus that burst from the sores on his body, dropping out with clumps of golden hair. He cooked in his sheets, stewed in his addiction and his pain. Only his mother could bear to touch him, and her visits had become fewer as her possessions slowly emptied from the house, as the divorce papers dropped through the letterbox while her bruises faded one by one.

Alone in the dark, he was forgotten, erased, a dirty secret.

And downstairs, Laurence Ivan drank and drank, and his slurred words echoed in the empty house.

"All her gifts are poisoned."

X - X - X - X - X

The lake was crowded in the sunset. The pod and the wolves stood uneasily apart, a barrier crossed only by Jess's generation, who talked loudly about the thick-headedness of youth, who hugged old friends and insulted old rivals. The pyre had burnt down to ashes, the scent of smoke gone from the air.

They fell silent at the sight of Phi and her friends, but people moved aside to make space for them. If a few murmurs arose, no one seemed to want to meet the challenge snapping in Jodie Slone's eyes, or question the little flames that Finn made dance casually along his knuckles until his father nudged him.

Then she heard a clamour, and Phi turned to see the pod in disarray.

Ryar had come.

She couldn't feel Ryar's power any more, but Phi remembered how immense it had been, how unmistakably the parent of her own. No matter how ordinary she appeared, Ryar couldn't hide what she was from the pod.

Some knelt; some took off their hats, and one woman covered her eyes as if she shouldn't look upon their creator. Awe was on every face.

She was curiously modern in a suit, her long hair held back in a loose knot. Her eyes were mild, sad, and she paused to pull people to their feet as she passed.

Then she reached Phi and her father – and she curtsied. Gasps arose.

"I came to pay my respects," she said. "She was an extraordinary woman."

"She was," her father said, too low to be heard by the crowd. "I am lost without her."

"Dad," Phi whispered. She couldn't bear the desperation in his voice.

"If I thought they could do without me, I would leave now," Daniel Thetis continued. His grey eyes were fierce. "And if you lead them, I could."

"No."

"They're your people."

Ryar gestured to the crowd. "They aren't my people. They came for you."

"They came for her," he corrected, husky.

"Today, perhaps. But tomorrow she will be gone, and the goodbyes will be over. And they will still come to you, because they love you, because they want to comfort you, because you are their hope. She was their prophet – their goddess. They respected her, they worshipped her, and they probably feared her if they had any sense. But Marie was as far beyond them as the stars. You are a part of them. You are their leader. Not me."

He was silent, looking at her as if he saw more than a legend. Perhaps he did, just as he had seen her mother all those years ago when she was a lonely, caged idol and he a boy who dreamed.

"I can see why men fought for you," he said at last.

"I can see why she died for you," replied Ryar, very gentle. "But it wasn't your fault."

Surprise and guilt flashed on his face – and Phi realised that he had blamed himself, that her father somehow thought this whole inevitable end was his responsibility. "I..."

"It was her choice," Ryar said. "Respect it. Respect her, and say your goodbyes. I think she'd be – rather irate if you did anything else."

He gave a long sigh, and said, "I don't want to say goodbye."

"You must," the Drax said, and Phi knew fresh pain at the truth of it. It felt so final, as if she was severing whatever remained between her and her mother – as if it made her mother unreal, forgotten, nothing but dust and memory.

"I know," her father said finally, and he held out his hand to Phi. She took it, clutching him as if she were a child again, and he led her to the end of the pier where the ashes were gathered in a little pot.

They stood together, seer and dreamer. The breeze plucked at her hair, drying her tears. She knew what had to come. Then her father turned and beckoned Ryar.

She joined them, face kind and puzzled.

"You were our beginning," Daniel Thetis said. "It seems...only fitting that you should send her back to the water with us."

She nodded, grave, and picked up the pot as carefully as if it held her heart.

"Your journey was long, and has seen its end," her father began, and Phi joined him, faltering, as Ryar scattered the ashes onto the lake. "May the ocean take you to its deepest heart: fly in its storms, sleep in its tides. And may the waters bring you back to us on the crest of every wave, until we are one."

The ashes gleamed like silver before the water swallowed them. The scene blurred; she was so tired of crying, but every time she thought she was done, Phi found she missed her mother all over again.

"I wish we had something better to give her," her father mumbled.

Ryar looked at him with such pity in her eyes. Then she said gently, "There was a people once who used to sing back the sun every morning."

It seemed to Phi that she heard Zeke again, speaking of slavery and calling back the sun. The longing that struck her was so fierce it hurt.

"They sang their dead into the underworld too, so that they could take a last piece of life with them, even if it was only the memory of sunlight and fragile love."

"Yes," her father said. "I think she would like that. There was a song that was ours…"

His eyes were young then, pushing back the years. Phi saw in them the man who'd danced with her mother in the living room – who'd had that same soft, enchanted look, as if Marie Thetis was the center and the soul of his world.

"It's still yours," Phi whispered, squeezing his hand.

He gave her a sad smile, and they both turned to the waters where Marie Thetis was indistinguishable from the sunlight on the waves. So softly she had to strain to hear him, he sang that old, sweet requiem to the wife he had waited years to lose, and never ceased to love.

_Somewhere, beyond the sea..._

She was a child again, watching her parents dancing in the living room: her mother was gold in the firelight and forever bright and beautiful and laughing...

_Somewhere waiting for me, my lover-_

His voice cracked and the melody dwindled, dying with the sunlight…

But another voice had caught the song; her own, the words rising up with a potency and a truth that Phi hadn't truly understood until now. It stung her throat like tears, that song; it broke her heart all over again, but she sang for her mother and hoped she was proud.

_-my lover stands on golden sands and watches the ships that go sailing…_

And she wasn't alone – Ryar overlaid her, pure and thrilling and full of sorrow. Others folded into one another like the waters until the pod was one unearthly choir, their fragile, forbidden love chasing after her mother on the last of the sunlight.

_I know beyond a doubt, my heart will lead me there soon – we'll meet, beyond the shore; we'll kiss, just as before... _

Then it was not only her mother she serenaded, but a boy who had burned for her, who had loved her beyond all hope of his survival. It was he who stood on alien shores, waiting for her as he had waited every night beside the lake – surely turning to her once more full of delight.

_Happy we will be beyond the sea and ever again…_

She sang of love, she sang of loss, she sang out her heart and hoped that somehow it would be carried on the last of the sunlight to the places where impossible dreams came true: behind the stars, between the rain, at the centre of the earth, wherever it was that wonder began.

I love you, she thought. That will never change. I love you beyond doubt or despair, beyond death.

Oh, gods, but how I miss you.

X - X - X - X - X

Afterwards she did her duty. There were conversations that she barely remembered. Jess pulled her into a hug and they cried together for a while. The pod shared endless memories of her mother; laughter and tears filled the air.

Mrs Ivan came and offered tentative condolences, as if she expected to be slapped away. She spoke with Phi's father for a long time; no one disturbed them.

Finally, it was late enough for most people to leave. The crowd dwindled and Phi slipped away from her friends. She knew they were trying to look after her, but she needed space. She felt hemmed in and on display, as if even her grief wasn't her own but part of some public outpouring.

She sat on the edge of the pier and dabbled her feet in the water. In the fading light, it was the same dark grey as her mother's eyes and oddly comforting.

Until he sat down beside her, she didn't even know Blue Malefici was there. Cross-legged, he watched the water with a cynical gaze as if it concealed secrets he was hungry to use.

"What do you want?" she said flatly.

"Nothing, yet." His voice was bored, his body relaxed.

"Then why are you here?"

"To remind you of the future," he said. "Perhaps you've forgotten in all this emotional clamour, but an hour and a day of it belongs to me."

Her throat was dry. "I haven't forgotten."

"Good. Your mother left me a prophecy." He drew out a piece of paper, and with a pang, Phi recognised her mother's writing. And then she frowned.

There was nothing on it but his name, a date, a time and a single line of description.

"Or rather," he continued, "she left me the promise of a prophecy. From you, little mermaid."

It seemed she couldn't get enough air in her lungs; she was dazed, bewildered, wanting to weep and to laugh because even now her mother was looking after her.

"All I promised you was an hour and a day."

In the gloom, his smile was a curl of shadow and light. "And I am prepared to bargain."

There were a thousand questions crowding her mind. She took the paper; rubbed it between her fingers to make sure it was real. "I want an hour and a day."

"An hour or a day." The words were whiplash-fast, suddenly cold. "Take care greed doesn't make you unwise."

Above his smile, as cold and dead as the moon, his eyes were unflinching. She remembered his hand arond her throat, the pleasure slick on his words when he spoke of violence.

"Why shouldn't I be greedy?" she demanded, ignoring how her hands shook on the paper.

"Why shouldn't I take my day and my hour now and toss that scrap into the lake?"

She swallowed. "A day for a day," she said finally.

"Done."

The pier creaked as he stood; he was only a slender silhouette, a dark space in the world, and then he was gone.

She was left with the paper and the words that had intrigued him enough to offer her some small escape.

His name. A time. A date. And a line of description.

_The dark core of Hades, where power beyond all once was and can be again._

She crumpled it into her bag, suddenly desperate to be rid of the future. In the summer night, the darkness seemed too close, too personal, merely another place where he waited for her, the last hour of her life mere dust in his fingers.

X - X - X - X - X

Her friends came and sat with her for a while, but she couldn't dredge up anything more than automatic answers. She felt wrung out and emptied, as if she was only a shell whispering dreams of the ocean.

They left her with words or hugs, or awkward jokes in Finn's case. When the water grew too cold, she left the pier but found herself unable to join the others around the fire that someone had started. The sight of Riose so close to Celia, smiling his little half-smile and pretending nothing had changed, made her ache for him. He didn't know what was to come. He didn't see the hairline fractures already a web across his heart, didn't know that he would break for love of Celia.

Call it fate. Call it chemistry. But whether science or superstition, it was an inevitability she was powerless to stop. She couldn't bear to look at them, to break their fleeting peace.

She went instead to the green slope that led onto the rushes, and stared at the flattened patch of grass. Zeke might just have left it, might be about to return. Phi sat there, watching the sky, and part of her wished that the stars would fall like tears, like jewels, so she could know that the world had been forever changed by his absence as she had.

The crunch of undergrowth alerted her: she looked up to see Ryar.

"The tide will turn soon," the Drax remarked, in a tone that implied it was somehow significant. Maybe it was to her.

"I thought it had turned," Phi said tiredly.

She didn't know what Ryar had to smile about; a soft, faint smile. "The new moon is here tonight."

"That's nice," she mumbled.

She didn't see the Drax frown.

"You miss Zeke, don't you?"

The question hurt; it made anger flare up in her chest. She wanted Ryar to leave her alone, to let her heal. "Of course I do. Do you miss Avy?"

Ryar didn't flinch. If there was reproach in her face, it didn't show in her voice. "Not really."

"Hard to love the sister who stole your husband, right?" Phi said pointedly.

"Avy? I don't think so." She sounded...amused, and interested despite herself, Phi turned to look at her.

"But you said she was his great love-"

"I said he had only one great love." She gave a slight shrug. "Believe me, no woman could compare with Fireblade's love for himself."

"Then why..."

"I trusted you," Ryar said simply.

A broken laugh slipped from her. "You shouldn't have. I nearly killed us all. If Zeke..." Her throat closed, and she could go no further.

"Did he tell you what he was called?" Ryar asked conversationally. She was so serene, so untroubled.

"Angel," she said numbly. "Djinn. Devil."

Ryar nodded. "He was called all of those things, but they were just guesses. He had another, truer name once."

She stared into her earnest face, forever young, forever beautiful in a way that Avy could never have seen. "Does it matter?" she said quietly. "He's gone. And he was never any of those things to me."

Those violet eyes were puzzled. "What was he to you?"

She turned away, folding her arms as if to hold the warmth of the day close to her heart. She couldn't bear the compassion in Ryar's face, in any of their faces. "I loved him," she said angrily. "Isn't that obvious?"

"Yes," Ryar said. "You loved him. Do you still?"

"Of course I do!"

Ryar scrutinsed her as if trying to fathom something – then her eyes widened, she took a breath and said, "You don't know, do you?"

"Know what?" Phi cried out. "I know that I loved him. I know that he died for me, and you just stand there as if nothing happened, as if it doesn't even matter! And...and everything is different – I want the sun to explode, I want the stars to fall so that I know that it isn't just me, that everyone knows he's gone and that the world is emptier because of it."

There was something close to horror in Ryar's face, in her wide eyes and her parted lips. Then she gathered herself and said, very softly, "I didn't know that you..."

"Now you do."

"And if I told you that a star might fall? That the sun might explode?"

Phi stared at her. "What do you mean?"

She gestured over the lake, to the patient stars and the hollow sky.

And there was a flare of light, a pinpoint that grew until it was something wild and fiery was tumbling through the air. A shooting star. A moment, a breath, a blink, it was gone.

"Make a wish," Ryar said wryly.

Phi struggled with her anger, savage, wounded, because it seemed as if the Drax was making fun of her. "Do you think that makes it any better?" she demanded. "Because one stupid star fell?"

"You really don't know, do you?" Ryar breathed.

Phi gazed at her, wondering if she had gone mad. "Stop saying that! Know _what_?"

"I told you he had a truer name," Ryar said slowly. "But I thought you knew what it was."

"I don't! What does it matter what he was called?"

"It matters," Ryar said, and suddenly she was hauling Phi to her feet, she was pointing at the horizon where something seemed to be glowing – as if the sun had risen again, as if something had called it back. "He had a thousand names, Phi, but only one that knew what he was and what he will be and what you love."

_What he will be_…

And her heart was thundering in her chest – she was wild and trembling and turning to Ryar with her hair loose and red as fire, wracked by terrible hope and equally terrifying love.

"What?" she gasped.

Ryar leaned in close, and Phi heard the joy in her fierce whisper.

"_Phoenix_."

And Phi was gone – she was running past her father and her friends, her dress streaming in the wind, chasing a fallen star. Her discarded heels lay on the ground; calls followed her into the woods and out to the cave where he had blazed so brightly.

She forgot the past. She forgot the future. There was only now, and here, and a wish on a fallen star.

And him, the beginning of wonder.

_And I won't leave  
I can't hide  
I cannot be  
Until you're resting here with me_

~*~ Fin ~*~


End file.
